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A WANDERER IN PARIS 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR 

A WANDERER IN LONDON 
A WANDERER IN HOLLAND 
OVER BEMERTON'S 

listener's lure 

anne's terrible good-nature 

the open road 

the gentlest art 

THE ladies' PAGEANT 
SOME FRIENDS OF MINE 
CHARACTER AND COMEDY 
THE LIFE OF CHARLES LAMB 
ONE DAY AND ANOTHER 




HOTEL DE SEN'S 

THE RUK DE LHOTEL DE VILLE 



A WANDERER IN 
PARIS 



BY 



i 

1^ E. V. LUCAS 



" ril go and chat with Paris " 
^ — Romeo and Juliet 



W 1 I SIXTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR BY 

WALTER DEXTER 

AND TH RTY-TWO REPRODUCTIONS FROM WORKS OF ART 
) 



"Nzia ^axk 

TH : MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1909 

J ^// rights reser-ved 






f 



Copyright, 1909, 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY, 



Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 19* 



ri A 2 4 6 5 6 
SEP :17 1909 



Nnrbjootr ^regs 
J. S. Gushing Co. — Berwick & Smith 
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 



i 



PREFACE 

A LTHOUGH the reader will quickly make 
-^^^ the discovery for himself, I should like 
here to emphasise the fact that this is a book 
about Paris and the Parisians written wholly 
from the outside, and containing only so much 
of that city and its citizens as a foreigner 
who has no French friends may observe on 
holiday visits. 

I express elsewhere my indebtedness to a 
few French authors. I have also been greatly 
assisted in a variety of ways, but especially 
in the study of the older Paris streets, by 
my friend Mr. Frank Holford. 

E. V. L. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I 

PAGE 

The English Gates of Paris i 

CHAPTER II 
The Ile de la Cnt 9 

CHAPTER III 
Notre Dame 31 

CHAPTER IV 
Saint Louis and his Island 54 

CHAPTER V 
The Marais 61 

CHAPTER VI 
The Louvre: I. The Old Masters 78 

CHAPTER VII 
The Louvre: II. Modern Pictures and Other Treasures 97 

CHAPTER VIII 
The Tuileries .114 

CHAPTER IX 

The Place de la Concorde, the Champs-Elysees and the 

Invalides 132 

vii 



viii A WANDERER IN PARIS 

CHAPTER X 

PAGE 

The Boulevard St. Germain and its Tributaries . . 158 

CHAPTER XI 
The Latin Quarter 170 

CHAPTER XII 
The Pantheon and Sainte Genevieve i88 

CHAPTER XIII 
Two Zoos 199 

CHAPTER XIV 
The Grands Boulevards : I. The Madeleine to the Opera 214 

CHAPTER XV 
A Chair at the Cafe de la Paix 227 

CHAPTER XVI 

The Grands Boulevards : II. The Opera to the Place de 

LA Republique 244 

CHAPTER XVII 
Montmartre 260 

CHAPTER XVIII 

The Elysee to the H3tel de Ville 276 

CHAPTER XIX 
The Place des Vosges and Hugo's House .... 299 

CHAPTER XX 

The Bastille, Pere Lachaise and the End . . , 306 

Index 321 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

IN COLOUR 



The Rue de l' Hotel de Ville 

The Courtyard of the Compas d'Or . 

The Ile de la Cite from the Pont des Arts 

Notre Dame 

The Arc de Triomphe de l'Etoile 

The Parc Monceau 

The Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel . 
The Place de la Concorde .... 

The Pont d' Alexandre III 

The Fontaine de Medicis .... 
The Musee Cluny ...... 

The Rue de Bievre 

The Boulevard des Italiens .... 

The Porte St. Denis 

Montmartre from the Buttes-Chaumont 
The Place des Vosges, Southern Entrance 



Frontispiece 
To face page 20v 
40 
58 



74'-' 
116/ 
124 
140 ' 
160 ■/■ 
180 
200 
222 
240 
258 
280 
300 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



IN BLACK AND WHITE 



Giovanni Tornabuoni et les Trois Graces — 
Fresco from the Villa Lemmi. Botticelli 
(Louvre) 



The Nativity. Luini (Louvre) . 

From a Photograph by Mansell 

La Vierge aux Rochers. Leonardo da Vinci 
(Louvre) ...... 

From a Photograph by Neurdein 

Sainte Anne, La Vierge, et l'Enfant Jesus. 
Leonardo da Vinci. (Louvre) 
From a Photograph by Neurdein 

La Pensee. Rodin (Luxembourg) 
From a Photograph by Neurdein 

Balthasar Castiglione. Raphael (Louvre) 

From a Photograph by Neurdein 

L' Homme au Gant. Titian (Louvre) 
From a Photograph by Neurdein 

Portrait de Jeune Homme. Attrilsuted to Bigio 

(Louvre) 

From a Photograph by Alinari 

The Winged Victory of Samothrace. (Louvre) 

From a Photograph by Giraudon 

La Joconde : Monna Lisa. Leonardo da Vinci 
(Louvre) ....... 

From a Photograph by Neurdein 



To face page 6 J 
i6 

26 ' 

36 . 
„ 46 i 



52 
64 

70 
80 

86 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



XI 



Portrait d'une Dame et sa Fille. Van Dyck 

(Louvre) To face page 94 

From a Photograph by Mansell 

Le Vallon. Corot (Louvre, Thomy-Thierret 

Collection) 

From a Photograph by Neurdein 

Le Printemps. Rousseau (Louvre, Thomy-Thierret 
Collection) ....... 

From a Photograph by Neurdein 

Vieux Homme et Enfant. Ghirlandaio (Louvre) 

From a Photograph by Mansell 

Venus et l' Amour. Rembrandt (Louvre) . 
From a Photograph by Neurdein 

Les Pelerins d'Emmaus. Rembrandt (Louvre) . 
From a Photograph by Neurdein 

La Vierge au Donateur. J. van Eyck (Louvre) 
From a Photograph by Neurdein 

Le Baiser. Rodin (Luxembourg) .... 
From a Photograph by Neurdein 

La Bohemienne. Franz Hals (Louvre) . 
From a Photograph by Neurdein 

Ste. GENEAaEVE. Puvis de Chavannes (Pantheon) 
From a Photograph by Neurdein 

La Lecon de Lecture. Terburg (Louvre) . 
From a Photograph by Neurdein 

La Dentelliere. Vermeer of Delft (Louvre) 
From a Photograph by Woodbury 

Girl's Head. Ecole de Fabriano (Louvre) . 
From a Photograph by Mansell 

La Benedicite. Chardin (Louvre) 
From a Photograph by Giraudon 

Madame Le Brun et sa Fille. Madame Le Brun 

(Louvre) 

From a Photograph by Hanfstaengl 



A WANDERER IN P.'.RIS 



Le Pont de Mantes. Corot (Louvre, Thomy- 

Thierret Collection) To face page 2t,2 

From a Photograph by Neurdein 

La Provende des Poules. Troyon (Louvre) . ,. 266 

From a Photograph by Alinari 

The Wind Mill. R. P. Bonington (Louvre) . „ 274 

L'Amateur d'Estampes. Daumier (Palais des 

Beaux Arts) ....... 286 

Portrait de sa Mere. "Whistler (Luxembourg) . „ 294 

Portrait de Mlle. de Moreno. Granie (Luxem- 
bourg) ,,308 

Le Monument aux Morts. A. Bartholome (Pere 

la Chaise) ........ -316 

From a Photograph by Neurdein 



A WANDERER IN PARIS 



A WANDERER IN PARIS 



CHAPTER I 

THE ENGLISH GATES OF PARIS 

The Gare du Nord and Gare St. Lazare — The Singing Cabman — 
" Vivent les femmes ! " — ■ Characteristic Paris — -The Next Morning 
— A Choice of Delights — The Compas d'Or — The World of Du- 
mas — The First Lunch — Voisin wins. 

MOST travellers from London enter Paris in the 
evening, and I think they are wise. I wish it 
were possible again and again to enter Paris in the 
evening for the first time; but since it is not, let me 
hasten to say that the pleasure of re-entering Paris 
in the evening is one that custom has almost no power 
to stale. Every time that one emerges from the Gare 
du Nord or the Gare St. Lazare one is taken afresh by 
the variegated and vivid activity of it all — the myriad 
purposeful self-contained bustling people, all moving 
on their unknown errands exactly as they were moving 
when one was here last, no matter how long ago. For 
Paris never changes: that is one of her most precious 
secrets. 

The London which one had left seven or eight hours 
before was populous enough and busy enough. Heaven 



2 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

knows, but London's pulse is slow and fairly regular, 
and even at her gayest, even when greeting Royalty, 
she seems to be advising caution and a careful de- 
meanour. But Paris — Paris smiles and Paris sings. 
There is an incredible vivacity in her atmosphere. 

Sings ! This reminds me that on the first occasion 
that I entered Paris — in the evening, of course — my 
cabman sang. He sang all the way from the Gare 
du Nord to the Rue Caumartin. This seemed to me 
delightful and odd, although at first I felt in danger of 
attracting more attention than one likes; but as we 
proceeded down the Rue Lafayette — which nothing but 
song and the fact that it is the high road into Paris 
from England can render tolerable — I discovered that 
no one minded us. A singing cabman in London would 
bring out the Riot Act and the military; but here he 
was in the picture : no one threw at the jolly fellow 
any of the chilling deprecatory glances which are the 
birthright of every light-hearted eccentric in my own 
land. And so we proceeded to the hotel, often escaping 
collision by the breadth of a single hair, the driver singing- 
all the way. What he sang I knew not: but I doubt 
if it was of battles long ago: rather, I should fancy, 
of very present love and mischief. But how fitting a 
first entry into Paris ! 

An hour or so later — it was just twenty years ago, 
but I remember it so clearly — I observed written up in 
chalk in large emotional letters on a public wall the 
words " Vivent les femmes ! " and they seemed to me also 



THE FOREIGN-NESS OF IT 3 

so odd — it seemed to me so funny that the sentiment 
should be recorded at all, since women were obviously 
going to live whatever happened — that I laughed aloud. 
But it was not less characteristic of Paris than the 
joyous baritone notes that had proceeded from beneath 
the white tall hat of my cocher. It was as natural for 
one Parisian to desire the continuance of his joy as 
a lover, even to expressing it in chalk in the street, as 
to another to beguile with lyrical snatches the tedium 
of cab-driving. 

I was among the Latin people, and, as I quickly 
began to discover, I was myself, for the first time, a 
foreigner. That is a discovery which one quickly makes 
in Paris. 

But I have not done yet with the joy of entering and 
re-entering Paris in the evening — after the long smooth 
journey across the marshes of Picardy or through the 
orchards of Normandy and the valley of the Seine — 
whichever way one travels. But whether one travels by 
Calais, Boulogne, Dieppe or Havre, whether one alights 
at the Gare du Nord or St. Lazare, once outside the 
station one is in Paris instantly: there is no debatable 
land between either of these termini and the city, as 
there is, for example, between the Gare de Lyons and 
the city. Paris washes up to the very platforms. A 
few steps and here are the foreign tables on the pave- 
ments and the foreign waiters, so brisk and clean, 
flitting among them ; here are the vehicles meeting and 
passing on the wrong or foreign side, and beyond that 



4 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

knowing apparently no law at all; here are the deep- 
voiced newsvendors shouting those magic words La 
Patrie I La Patrie ! which, should a musician ever write 
a Paris symphony, would recur and recur continually 
beneath its surface harmonies. And here, everywhere, 
are the foreign people in their ordered haste and their 
countless numbers. 

The pleasure of entering and re-entering Paris in the 
evening is only equalled by the pleasure of stepping 
forth into the street the next morning in the sparkling 
Parisian air and smelling again the pungent Parisian 
scent and gathering in the foreign look of the place. 
I know of no such exuberance as one draws in with 
these first Parisian inhalations on a fine morning in May 
or June — and in Paris in May and June it is always fine, 
just as in Paris in January and February it is always cold 
or wet. His would be a very sluggish or disenchanted 
spirit who was not thus exhilarated ; for here at his feet 
is the holiday city of Europe and the clean sun over all. 

And then comes the question " What to do ? " Shall 
we go at once to "Monna Lisa.?" But could there 
be a better morning for the children in the Champs 
Elysees ? That beautiful head in the His de la Salle 
collection — attributed to the school of Fabriano ! How 
delightfully the sun must be lighting up the red walls 
of the Place des Vosges ! Rodin's " Kiss " at the Lux- 
embourg — we meant to go straight to that ! The wheel 
window in Notre Dame, in the north transept — I have 
been thinking of that ever since we planned to come. 



THE COMPAS D'OR 5 

So may others talk and act ; but I have no hesitan- 
cies. My'duty is clear as crystal. On the first morning 
I pay a visit of reverence and delight to the ancient 
auberge of the Compas d'Or at No. 64 Rue Montor- 
gueil. And this I shall always do until it is razed to (^ 
the earth, as it seems likely to be under the gigantic 
scheme, beyond Haussmann almost, which is to renovate 
the most picturesque if the least sanitary portions of 
old Paris at a cost of over thirty millions of pounds. 
Unhappy day — may it be long postponed ! For some 
years now I have always approached the Compas d'Or 
with trembling and foreboding. Can it still be there ? 
I ask myself. Can that wonderful wooden hanger that 
covers half the courtyard have held so long.? Will 
there be a motor-car among the old diligences and 
waggons ? But it is always the same. 

From the street — and the Rue Montorgueil is as a 
whole one of the most picturesque and characteristic 
of the older streets of Paris, with its high white houses, 
each containing fifty families, its narrowness, its bar- 
rows of fruit and green stuff by both pavements, and 
its crowds of people — from the street, the Compas d'Or 
is hardly noticeable, for a butcher and a cutler occupy 
most of its fa9ade; but the sign and the old carvings 
over these shops give away the secret, and you pass 
through one of the narrow archways on either side and 
are straightway in a romance by the great Dumas. Into 
just such a courtyard would D'Artagnan have dashed, 
and leaping from one sweating steed leap on another 



6 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

and be off again amid a shower of sparks on the stones. 
Time has stood still here. 

There is no other such old inn left. The coach to 
Dreux — now probably a carrier's cart — still regularly 
runs from this spot, as it has done ever since the 
beginning of the sixteenth century. Rows of horses 
stand in its massive stables and fill the air with their 
warm and friendly scent ; a score of ancient carts huddle 
in the yard, in a corner of which there will probably 
be a little group of women shelling peas; beneath the 
enormous hanger are more vehicles, and masses of hay 
on which the carters sleep. The ordinary noise of 
Paris gives way, in this sanctuary of antiquity, to the 
scraping of hoofs, the rattle of halter bolts, and the 
clatter of the wooden shoes of ostlers. It is the past in 
actual being — Civilisation, like Time, has stood still in 
the yard of the Compas d'Or. That is why I hasten to 
it so eagerly and shall always do so until it disappears 
for ever. There is nothing else in Paris like it. 

And after? Well, the next thing is to have lunch. 
And since this lunch — being the first — will be the best 
lunch of the holiday and therefore the best meal of the 
holiday (for every meal on a holiday in Paris is a little 
better than that which follows it), it is an enterprise 
not lightly to be undertaken. One must decide carefully, 
for this is to be an extravagance: the search for the 
little out-of-the-way restaurant will come later. To- 
day we are rich. 

This book is not a guide for the gastronome and 



CHEZ VOISIN 7 

gourmet. How indeed could it be, even although 
when heaven sends a cheerful hour one would scorn to 
refrain ? Yet none the less it would be pleasant in 
this commentary upon a city illustrious for its culinary 
ingenuity and genius to say something of restaurants. 
But what is one to say here on such a theme .? Volumes 
are needed. Everyone has his own taste. For me 
Voisin's remains and will, I imagine, remain the most 
distinguished, the most serene, restaurant in Paris, in 
its retired situation at the corner of the Rue Sainte- 
Honore and the Rue Cambon, with its simple decoration, 
its unhastening order and despatch, its Napoleonic head- 
waiter, its Bacchic wine-waiter (with a head that calls 
for vine leaves) and its fastidious cuisine. To Voisin's 
I should always make my way when I wished not only 
to be delicately nourished but to be quiet and philo- 
sophic and retired. Only one other restaurant do I 
know where the cooking gives me the satisfaction of 
Voisin's — where excessive richness never intrudes — 
and that is a discovery of my own and not lightly to be 
given away. Voisin's is a name known all over the 
world : one can say nothing new about Voisin's ; but 
the little restaurant with which I propose to tantalise 
you, although the resort of some of the most tnoughtful 
eaters in Paris, has a reputation that has not spread. 
It is not cheap, it is little less dear indeed than the 
Cafe Anglais or Paillard's, to name the two restaurants 
of renown which are nearest to it ; its cellar is poor and 
limited to half a dozen wines ; its two rooms are minute 



8 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

and hot ; but the idea of gastronomy reigns — everything 
is subordinated to the food and the cooking. If you 
order a trout, it is the best trout that France can breed, 
and it is swimming in the kitchen at the time the 
solitary waiter repeats your command ; no such aspara- 
gus reaches any other Paris restaurant, no such Pre Sale 
and no such wild strawberries. But I have said enough ; 
almost I fear I have said too much. These discoveries 
must be kept sacred. 

And for lunch to-day.? Shall it be chez Voisin, or 
chez Foyot, by the Senat, or chez Laperouse (where the 
two Stevensons used to eat and talk) on the Quai des 
Augustins ? Or shall it be at my nameless restaurant ? 

Voisin's to-day, I think. 



CHAPTER II 

THE ILE DE LA CIT:6 

Paris Old and New — The Heart of France — Saint Louis — Old 
Palaces — Henri TV.'s Statue — Ironical Changes — The Seine and 
the Thames — The Quais and their Old Books — Diderot and the 
Lady — Police and Red Tape — The Conciergerie — Marie An- 
toinette — Paris and its Clocks — Meryon's Etchings — French 
Advocates — A Hall of Babel — Sainte Chapelle — French News- 
papers Serious and Comic — The Only Joke — The English and 
the French. 

WHERE to begin ? That is a problem in the writ- 
ing of every book, but pecuharly so with Paris ; 
because, however one may try to be chronological, the 
city is such a blend of old and new that that design 
is frustrated at every turn. Nearly every building of 
importance stands on the site of some other which 
instantly jerks us back hundreds of years, while if we 
deal first with the original structure, such as the re- 
mains of the Roman Thermes at the Cluny, built about 
300, straightway the Cluny itself intrudes, and we leap 
from the third century to the nineteenth ; or if we trace 
the line of the wall of Philip Augustus we come swiftly 
to so modern an institution as the Mont-de-Piete ; or 
if we climb to such a recent thoroughfare as the Boule- 
vard de Clichy, with its palpitatingly novel cabarets 

9 



10 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

and allurements, we must in order to do so ascend a 
mountain which takes its name from the martyrdom 
of St. Denis and his companions in the third century. 
It is therefore well, since Paris is such a tangle of past 
and present, to disregard order altogether and to let 
these pages reflect her character. Expect then, dear 
reader, to be twitched about the ages without mercy. 

Let us begin in earnest by leaving the mainland and 
adventuring upon an island. For the heart of Paris is 
enisled : Notre Dame, Sainte Chapelle, the Palais de 
Justice, the Hotel Dieu, the Prefecture de Police, the 
Morgue — all are entirely surrounded by water. The 
history of the Cite is the history of Paris, almost the 
history of France. 

Paris, the home of the Parisii, consisted of nothing 
but this island when Julius Csesar arrived there with 
his conquering host. The Romans built their palace 
here, and here Julian the Apostate loved to sojourn. 
It was in Julian's reign that the name was changed 
from Lutetia (which it is still called by picturesque 
writers) to Parisea Civitas, from which Paris is an easy 
derivative. The Cite remained the home of govern- 
ment when the Merovingians under Clovis expelled the 
Romans, and again under the Carlovingians. The 
second Royal Palace was begun by the first of the 
Capets, Hugh, in the tenth century, and it was com- 
pleted by Robert the Pious in the eleventh. Louis 
VII. decreed Notre Dame; but it was Saint Louis, 
reigning from 1226 to 1270, who was the father of the 



THE GROWTH OF PARIS 11 

Cite as we know it. He it was who built Sainte 
Chapelle,' and it was lie who surrendered part of the 
Palace to the Law. 

While it was the home of the Court and the Church 
the island naturally had little enough room for ordinary 
residents, who therefore had to live, whether aristocrats 
or tradespeople, on the mainland, either on the north 
or south side of the river. The north side for the most 
part was given to merchants, the south to scholars, 
for Saint Louis was the builder not only of Sainte 
Chapelle but also of the Sorbonne. Very few of the 
smaller buildings of that time now remain: the oldest 
Paris that one now wanders in so delightedly, whether 
on the north bank or the south, whether near the Sor- 
bonne or the Hotel de Sens, dates, with a few fortunate 
exceptions, from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. 

Nowhere may the growth of Paris be better observed 
and better understood than on the highest point on this 
Island of the City — on the summit of Notre Dame. 
Standing there you quickly comprehend the Paris of 
the ages: from Caesar's Lutetia, occupying the island 
only and surrounded by fields and wastes, to the Paris of 
this year of our Lord, spreading over the neighbouring 
hills, such a hive of human activity and energy as will 
hardly bear thinking of — a Paris which has thrown off 
the yoke not only of the kings that once were all-power- 
ful but of the Church too. 

By the twelfth century the kings of France had be- 
gun to live in smaller palaces more to their personal 



U A WANDERER IN PARIS 

taste, such as the Hotel Barbette, the Hotel de Sens, 
(much of which still stands, as a glass factory, at the 
corner of the Rue d'Hotel de Ville and the Rue de 
Figuier, one of the oldest of the Paris mansions), the 
Hotel de Bourgogne (in the Rue Etienne Marcel : you 
may still see its tower of Saint Jean Sans Peur), the 
Hotel de Nevers (what remains of which is at the 
corner of the Rue Colbert and Rue Richelieu), and, 
of course, the Louvre. Charles VII. (1422-1461) was 
the first king to settle at the Louvre permanently. 

To gain the He de la Cite we leave the mainland 
of Paris at the Quai du Louvre, and make our crossing 
by the Pont Neuf. Neuf no longer, for as a matter of 
historical fact it is now the oldest of all the Paris bridges : 
that is, in its foundations, for the visible part of it has 
been renovated quite recently. The first stone of it 
was laid by Henri III. in 1578 : it was not ready for 
many years, but in 1603 Henri TV. (of Navarre) ven- 
tured across a plank of it on his way to the Louvre, 
after several previous adventurers had broken their 
necks in the attempt. " So much the less kings they," 
was his comment. He lived to see the bridge fin- 
ished. 

Behind the statue of this monarch, whom the French 
still adore, is the garden that finishes off the west end of 
the He very prettily, sending its branches up above the 
parapet, as Mr. Dexter's drawing shows. Here we may 
stop; for we are now on the Island itself, midway be- 
tween the two halves of the bridge, and the statue has 



A DOUBLE-NAPOLEON 13 

such a curious history, so typical of the French character, 
that I shduld hke to tell it. The original bronze figure, 
erected by Louis XIII. in 1614, was taken down in 1792, 
a time of stress, and melted into a commodity that was 
then of vastly greater importance than the effigies of 
kings — namely cannon. (As we shall see in the course 
of this book, Paris left the hands of the Revolutionaries 
a totally different city from the Paris of 1791.) Then 
came peace again, and then came Napoleon, and in the 
collection at the Archives is to be seen a letter written 
by the Emperor from Schonbrunn, on August 15th, 1809, 
stating that he wishes an obelisk to be erected on the 
site of the Henri IV. statue — an obelisk of Cherbourg 
granite, 180 pieds d'elevation, with the inscription 
"I'Empereur Napoleon au Peuple Francais." That, 
however, was not done. 

Time passed on. Napoleon fell, and Louis XVIII. 
returned from his English home to the throne of France 
and was not long in perpetrating one of those symmet- 
rical ironical jests which were then in vogue. Taking 
from the Vendome column the bronze statue of Napoleon 
(who was safely under the thumb of Sir Hudson Lowe 
at St. Helena, well out of mischief), and to this adding 
a second bronze statue of the same usurper intended for 
some other site, the monarch directed that they should 
be melted into liquid from which a new statue of Henri 
IV. — the very one at which we are at this moment 
gazing — should be cast. It was done, and though to 
the Rontgen-rayed vision of the cynic it may appear 



14 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

to be nothing more or less than a double Napoleon, 
it is to the world at large Henri IV., the hero of 
Ivry. 

I have seen comparisons between the Seine and the 
Thames ; but they are pointless. You cannot compare 
them: one is a London river, and the other is a Paris 
river. The Seine is a river of light; the Thames is a 
river of twilight. The Seine is gay; the Thames is 
sombre. When dusk falls in Paris the Seine is just a 
river in the evening; when dusk falls in London the 
Thames becomes a wonderful mystery, an enchanted 
stream in a land of old romance. The Thames is, I 
think, vastly more beautiful ; but on the other hand, the 
Thames has no merry passenger steamers and no storied 
quais. The Seine has all the advantage when we come to 
the consideration of what can be done with a river's banks 
in a great city. For the Seine has a mile of old book 
and curiosity stalls, whereas the Thames has nothing. 

And yet the coping of the Thames embankment is as 
suitable for such a purpose as that of the Seine, and as 
many Londoners are fond of books. How is it ? Why 
should all the bookstalls and curiosity stalls of London 
be in Whitechapel and Farringdon Street and the Cattle 
Market ? That is a mysteiy which I have never solved 
and never shall. Why are the West Central and the 
West districts wholly debarred — save in Charing Cross 
Road, and that I believe is suspect — from loitering at 
such alluring street banquets? It is beyond under- 
standing. 



THE BOOK STALLS 15 

The history of the stall-holders of the quais has been 
told very engagingly by M. Octave Uzanne, whom one 
might describe as the Austin Dobson and the Augustine 
Birrell of France, in his work Bouquinistes et Bouquin- 
eurs. They established themselves first on the Pont 
Neuf, but in 1650 were evicted. (The Paris bridges, I 
might say here, become at the present time the resort of 
every kind of pedlar directly anything occurs to suspend 
their traffic.) 

The parapets of the quais then took the place of those 
of the bridge, and there the booksellers' cases have been 
ever since. But no longer are they the gay resort that 
once they were. It was considered, says M. Uzanne, 
writing of the eighteenth century, "quite the correct 
thing for the promenaders to gossip round the book- 
stalls and discuss the wit and fashionable writings of 
the day. At all hours of the day these quarters were 
much frequented, above all by literary men, lawyers' 
clerks and foreigners. One historical fact, not gener- 
ally known, merits our attention, for it shows that not 
only the libraries and the stall-keepers assisted in draw- 
ing men of letters to the vicinity of the Hotel Mazarin, 
but there also existed a ' rendez-vous ' for the sale of 
English and French journals. It was, in fact, at the 
corner of the Rue Dauphine and the Quai Conti that 
the first establishment known as the Cafe Anglais was 
started. One read in big letters on the sign board: 
Cafe Anglais — Becket, proprietaire. This was the 
meeting place of the greater part of English writers 



16 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

visiting Paris who wished to become acquainted with the 
literary men of the period, the encyclopaedists and poets 
of the Court of Louis XV. This Cafe offered to its 
habitues the best-known English papers of the day, the 
Westminster Gazette, the London Evening Post, the Daily 
Advertiser, and the various pamphlets published on the 
other side of the Channel. ... 

" You must know that the Quai Conti up to the year 
1769 was only a narrow passage leading down to a place 
for watering horses. Between the Pont Neuf and the 
building known as the Chateau-Gaillard at the opening 
of the Rue Guenegaud, were several small shops and a 
small fair continually going on. 

"This Chateau-Gaillard, which was a dependency of 
the old Porte de Nesle, had been granted by Francis I. 
to Benvenuto Cellini. The famous Florentine gold- 
smith received visits from the Sovereign protector of 
arts and here executed the work he had been ordered 
to do, under his Majesty's very eyes. . . . 

"One calls to mind that Sterne, in his delightful 
Sentimental Journey, was set down in 1767 at the Hotel 
de Modene, in the Rue Jacob, opposite the Rue des Deux- 
Anges, and one has not forgotten his love for the quais 
and the adventure which befell him while chatting to a 
bookseller on the Quai Conti, of whom he wished to buy 
a copy of Shakespeare so that he might read once more 
Polonius' advice to his son before starting on his travels. 

"Diderot, in his Salon of 1761, relates his flirtation 
with the pretty girl who served in one of these shops 




THE NATIVITY 

LUINI 

{Louvre) 



THE FREE READERS 17 

and afterwards became the wife of Menze. She called 
herself Miss Babuti and kept a small book shop on the 
Quai des Augustins, spruce and upright, white as a lily 
and red as a rose. I would enter her shop, in my own 
brisk way : " Mademoiselle, the ' Contes de la Fontaine ' 
. . . a ' Petronius ' if you please." — " Here you are. Sir. 
Do you want any other books .?" — "Forgive me, yes." 
— "What is it?" — "La 'Religieuse en Chemise.'" — 
" For shame. Sir ! Do you read such trash ? " — " Trash, 
is it. Mademoiselle.? I did not know. . . ."'" 

M. Uzanne's pages are filled with such charming 
gossip and with character-sketches of the most famous 
booksellers and book-hunters. One pretty trait that 
would have pleased Mary Lamb (and perhaps did, in 
1822, when her brother took her to the "Boro' side of 
the Seine") is mentioned by M. Uzanne: "The stall- 
keeper on the quais always has an indulgent eye for 
the errand boy or the little bonne [slavey] who stops in 
front of his stall and consults gratis ' La Clef des Songes ' 
or the ' Le Secretaire des Dames.' Who would not com- 
mend him for this kind toleration.? In fact it is very 
rare to find the bookseller in such cases not shutting 
his eyes — metaphorically — and refraining from walk- 
ing up to the reader, for fear of frightening her away. 
And then the young girl moves off with a light step, 
repeating to herself the style of letter or the explanation 
of a dream, rich in hope and illusions for the rest of the 
day." 

But the best description of the book-hunter of the 



18 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

quais is that given to Dumas by Charles Nodier. " This 
animal," he said, "has two legs and is featherless, 
wanders usually up and down the quais and the boule- 
vards, stopping at all the old bookstalls, turning over 
every book on them; he is habitually clad in a coat 
that is too long for him and trousers that are too short; 
he always wears on his feet shoes that are down at the 
heel, a dirty hat on his head, and, under his coat and 
over his trousers, a waistcoat fastened together with 
string. One of the signs by which he can be recognised 
is that he never washes his hands." 

Henri IV. 's statue faces the Place Dauphine and the 
west fa9ade of the Palais de Justice. At No. 28 in the 
Place Dauphine Madame Roland was born, little think- 
ing she was destined one day to be imprisoned in the 
neighbouring Conciergerie, which, to those who can 
face the difficulties of obtaining a ticket of admission, 
is one of the most interesting of the Island's many in- 
teresting buildings. But the process is not easy, and 
there is only one day in the week on which the prison 
is shown. 
/ / The tickets are issued at the Prefecture of Police — 
the Scotland Yard of Paris — which is the large building 
opposite Sainte Chapelle. One may either write or call. 
I advise writing; for calling is not as simple as it 
sounds : simplicity and sightseeing in Paris being indeed 
not on the best terms. It was not until I had asked 
five several officials that I found even the right door 
of the vast structure, and then having passed a room 



THE KINDLY POLICE 19 

full of agents (or policemen) smoking and jesting, and 
having climbed to a third storey, I was in danger of los- 
ing for ever the privilege of seeing what I had fixed my 
mind upon, wholly because, although I knew the name 
and street of my hotel, I did not know its number. 
Who ever dreamed that hotels have numbers ? Has the 
Savoy a number in the Strand ? Is the Ritz numbered 
in Piccadilly? Not that I was living in any such 
splendour, but still, on the face of it, a hotel has a name 
because it has no number. " C'est egal," the gentleman 
said at last, after a pantomime of impossibility and 
reproach, and I took my ticket, bowed to the ground, 
replaced my hat and was free to visit the Conciergerie 
on the morrow. Such are the amenities of the tourist's 
life. 

Let me here say that the agents of Paris are by far 
its politest citizens, and in appearance the healthiest. 
I have never met an uncivil agent, and I once met one 
who refused a tip after he had been of considerable 
service to me. Never did I attempt to tip another. 
They have their defects, no doubt: they have not the 
authority that we give our police: their management 
of traffic is pathetically incompetent ; but they are street 
gentlemen and the foreigner has no better friend. 

The Conciergerie is the building on the Quai d'Hor- 
loge with the circular towers beneath extinguishers — an 
impressive sight from the bridges and the other bank of 
the river. Most of its cells are now used as rooms for 
soldiers (Andre Chenier's dungeon is one of their 



20 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

kitchens) ; but a few rooms of the deepest historical 
interest have been left as they were. These are dis- 
played by a listless guide who rises to animation only 
when the time comes to receive his benefice and offer for 
sale a history of his preserves. 

One sees first the vaulted Salle Saint Louis, called the 
Salle des Pas Perdus because it was throuoh it that the 
victims of the Revolution walked on their way to the 
Cour de Mai and execution. The terribly significant 
name has since passed to the great lobby of the Palais 
de Justice immediately above it, where it has less ap- 
propriateness. It is of course the cell of Marie Antoin- 
ette that is the most poignant spot in this grievous place. 
When the Queen was here the present room was only 
about half its size, having a partition across it, behind 
which two soldiers were continually on guard, day and 
night. The Queen was kept here, suffering every kind 
of indignity and petty tyranny, from September 11th, 
1793, until October 16th. Her chair, in which she sat 
most of the time, faced the window of the courtyard. 

A few acts of kindness reached her in spite of the 
vigilance of the authorities ; but very few. I quote the 
account of two from the official guide, a poor thing, 
which I was weak enough to buy : " The Queen had no 
complaint to make against the concierges Richard nor 
their successors the Baults. It is told that one day, 
about the end of August, Richard asked a fruitseller in 
the neighbourhood to select him the best of her melons, 
whatever it might cost. 'It is for a very important 







■^ .: 



Q 
oi 
< 
> 
H 
Oi 

D 
O 
o 

H 



^" 



A HUMAN INTERLUDE 21 

personage then ? ' said the seller disdainfully, looking at 
the concierge's threadbare clothes. ' Yes,' said he, ' it is 
for someone who was once very important ; she is so no 
longer; it is for the Queen.' 'The Queen,' exclaimed 
the tradeswoman, turning over all her melons, 'the 
Queen ! Oh, poor woman ! Here, make her eat that, 
and I won't have you pay for it. . . .' 

" One of the gendarmes on duty having smoked dur- 
ing the night, learnt the following day that the Queen, 
whom he noticed was very pale, had suffered from the 
smell of tobacco ; he smashed his pipe, swearing not to 
smoke any more. It was he also who said to those who 
came in contact with Marie Antoinette: 'Whatever 
you do, don't say anything to her about her children.' " 

For her trial the Queen was taken to the Tribunal 
sitting in what is now the First Circle Chamber of the 
Palais de Justice, and led back in the evening to her 
cell. She was condemned to death on the fifteenth, and 
that night wrote a letter to her sister-in-law Elizabeth 
which we shall see in the Archives Nationales: it is 
firmly written. 

The Conciergerie had many other prisoners, but none 
so illustrious. Robespierre occupied for twenty-four 
hours the little cell adjoining that of the Queen, now 
the vestry of the chapel. Madame Du Barry and 
Madame Recamier had cells adjacent to that of Madame 
Roland. Later Marechal Ney was imprisoned here. 
The oldest part of all — the kitchens of Saint Louis — 
are not shown. 



22 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

The Pont au Change, the bridge which connects the 
Place du Chatelet with the Boulevard du Palais, the 
main street of the He de la Cite, was once (as the Ponte 
Vecchia at Florence still is) the headquarters of gold- 
smiths and small bankers. Not the least of the losses 
that civilisation and rebuilders have brought upon us 
is the disappearance of the shops and houses from the 
bridges. Old London Bridge — how one regrets that ! 

At the corner of the Conciergerie is the Horloge that 
gives the Quai its name — a floridly decorated clock 
which by no means conveys the impression that it has 
kept time for over five hundred years and is the oldest 
exposed time-piece in France. Paris, by the way, is very 
poor in public clocks, and those that she has are not 
too trustworthy. The one over the Gare St. Lazare 
has perhaps the best reputation; but time in Paris is 
not of any great importance. For most Parisians there 
is an inner clock which strikes with perfect regularity 
at about twelve and seven, and no other hours really 
matter. And yet a certain show of marking time is 
made in the hotels, where every room has an elaborate 
ormolu clock, usually under a glass case and rarely 
going. And in one hotel I remember a large clock on 
every landing, of which I passed three on my way up- 
stairs; and their testimony was so various that it was 
two hours later by each, so that by the time I had 
reached my room it was nearly time to get up. On ask- 
ing the waiter the reason he said it was because they 
were synchronised by electricity. 



MERYON 23 

There has been a Tour de I'Horloge at this corner 
of the Condiergerie ever since it was ordained by PhiHppe 
le Bel in 1299 ; the present clock, or at least its scheme 
of decoration, dates, however, from Henri III.'s reign, 
about 1585. The last elaborate restoration was in 
1852. In the tower above was a bell that was rung 
only on rare occasions. The usual accounts of the 
Massacre of St. Bartholomew say that the signal for 
that outrage was sounded by the bell of St. Germain 
I'Auxerrois; but others give it to the bell of the Tour 
de I'Horloge. As they are some distance from each 
other, perhaps both were concerned; but since St. 
Germain I'Auxerrois is close to the Louvre, where the 
King was waiting for the carnage to begin, it is prob- 
able that it rang the first notes. 

One of Meryon's most impressive and powerful etch- 
ings represents the Tour de I'Horloge and the fa9ade of 
the Conciergerie. It is a typical example of his strange 
and gloomy genius, for while it is nothing else in the 
world but what it purports to be, it is also quite unlike 
the Tour de I'Horloge and the fa9ade of the Conciergerie 
as any ordinary eyes have seen them. They are made 
terrible and sinister: they have been passed through 
the dark crucible of Meryon's mind. To see Paris as 
Meryon saw it needs a great effort of imagination, so 
swiftly and instinctively do these people remove the 
traces of unhappiness or disaster. It is the nature of 
Paris to smile and to forget; from any lapse into woe 
she recovers with extraordinary rapidity. 



24 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

Meryon's Paris glowers and shudders ; there is blood 
on her hands and guilt in her heart. I will not say 
that this concept is untrue, because I believe that the 
concept formed by a man of genius is always true, al- 
though it may not contain all the truth, and indeed one 
has to recall very little history to fall easily into Meryon's 
mood ; but for the visitor who has chosen Paris for his 
holiday — the typical reader, for example, of this book 
— Mr. Dexter's concept of Paris is a more natural one. 
(I wish, by the way, before it is too late, that Mr. Muir- 
head Bone would devote some time to the older parts of 
the city — particularly to the Marais. How it lies to 
his hand !) 

Since we are at the gates of the Palais de Justice, let 
us spend a little time among the advocates and their 
clients in the great hall — the Salle des Pas Perdus. 
(In an interesting work, by the way, on this building, 
with a preface by the younger Dumas, the amendment, 
"La Salle du temps perdu" is recommended.) The 
French law courts, as a whole, are little different from 
our own : they have the same stuffiness, they give the 
same impression of being divided between the initiated 
and the uninitiated, the little secret society of the Bar and 
the great innocent world. But the Salle des Pas Perdus 
is another thing altogether. There is nothing like that 
in the Strand. Our Strand counsel are a dignified, 
clean-shaven, be-wigged race, striving to appear old and 
inscrutable and important. They are careful of ap- 
pearances; they receive instructions only through soli- 



THE ADVOCATES 25 

citors; they affect to weigh their words; sagacious 
reserve is their fetish. Hence our law courts, although 
there are many consultations and incessant passings to 
and fro, are yet subdued in tone and overawing to the 
talkative. 

But the Palais de Justice ! — Babel was inaudible 
beside it. In the Palais de Justice everyone talks at 
once ; no one cares a sou for appearances or reticence ; 
there are no wigs, no shorn lips, no affectation of a 
superhuman knowledge of the world. The French 
advocate comes into direct communication with his 
client — for the most part here. The movement as well 
as the vociferation is incessant, for out of this great hall 
open as many doors as there are in a French farce, and 
every door is continually swinging. Indeed, that is the 
chief effect conveyed : that one is watching a farce, 
since there has never been a farce yet without a legal 
gentleman in his robes and black velvet cap. The 
chief difference is that here there are hundreds of them. 
As a final touch of humour, or lack of gravity, I may 
add that notices forbidding smoking are numerous, and 
every advocate and every client is puffing hard at his 
cigarette. 

Victor Hugo's Notre Dame begins, it will be remem- 
bered, in the great Hall of the Palais de Justice, where 
Gringoire's neglected mystery play was performed and 
Quasimodo won the prize for ugliness. The Hall, as 
Hugo says, was burned in 1618: by a fire which, he 
tells us, was made necessary by the presence in the 



26 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

archives of the Palais of the documents in the case of 
the assassination of Henri IV. by Ravaillac. Certain of 
Ravaillac's accompHces and instigators wishing these 
papers to disappear, the fire followed as a matter of 
course, as naturally as in China a house had to be 
burned down before there could be roast pig. 

Sainte Chapelle, which, with the kitchens of Saint 
Louis under the Conciergerie, is all that remains of 
the royal period of the Palais de Justice, is, except on 
Mondays, always open during the reasonable daylight 
hours and is wholly free from vexatious restrictions. 
Sanctity having passed from it, the French sightseers 
do not even remove their hats, although I have noticed 
that the English and Americans still find the habit too 
strong. The Chapelle may easily disappoint, for such 
is the dimness of its religious light that little is visible 
save the dark coloured windows. One is, however, 
conscious of perfect proportions and such ecclesiastical 
elegance as paint and gold can convey. It is in fact 
exquisite, yet not with an exquisiteness of simplicity but 
of design and elaboration. It is like a jewel — almost 
a trinket — which Notre Dame might have once worn 
on her breast and tired of. Its fleche is really beauti- 
ful; it darts into the sky with only less assurance and 
joy than that of Notre Dame, and I always look up 
with pleasure to the angel on the eastern point of the 
roof. 

What one has the greatest difficulty in believing is 
that Saint Chapelle is six hundred and fifty years old. 




LA VIERGE AUX ROCHERS 

LEONARDO DA VINCI 
(Louz're') 



A CITY OF JOURNALISTS 27 

It was built for the relics brought from the Crusades 
by Saint Louis, which are now in the Treasury of Notre 
Dame. The Chapel has, of course, known the restorer's 
hand, but it is virtually the original structure, and 
some of the original glass is still here preserved amid 
reconstructions. To me Sainte Chapelle's glass makes 
little appeal; but many of my friends talk of nothing 
else. Let us thank God for differences of taste. Dur- 
ing the Commune (as recently as 1871) an attempt was 
made to burn Sainte Chapelle, together with the Palais 
de Justice, but it just failed. That was the third fire 
it has survived. 

From Sainte Chapelle we pass through the Rue de 
Lutece, which is opposite, across the Boulevard, because 
there is a statue here of some interest — that of Re- 
naudon, who lived in the first half of the seventeenth 
century at No. 8 Quai du Marche Neuf, close by, and 
founded in 1631 the first French newspaper, the Gazette 
de France. Little could he have foreseen the conse- 
quences of his rash act ! It is amusing to stand here 
a while and meditate on the torrent that has proceeded 
from that small spring. Other cities have as busy a 
journalistic life as Paris, and in London the paper boys 
are more numerous and insistent, while in London we 
have also the contents' bills, which are unknown to 
France; and yet Paris seems to me to be more a city 
of newspapers than even London is. Perhaps it is the 
kiosques that convey the impression. 

The London paper and the Paris papers could not 



28 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

well be more different. In the matter of size, Paris, I 
think, has all the advantage, for one may read every- 
thing in a few minutes ; but in the matter of ingredients 
the advantage surely lies with us, for although English 
papers tell far too much, and by their own over-curious- 
ness foster inquisitiveness and busy-bodydom, yet they 
have some sense of what is important, and one can 
always find the significant news by hunting for it. 
In Paris this is less easy. What one will find, however, 
is a short story or a literary essay written with distinction, 
an anecdote of the day by no means adapted for the 
young person, and a number of trumpery tragedies of 
passion or excess, minutely told. The signed articles 
are always good, and when critical usually fearless, 
but the unsigned notices of a new play or spectacle 
credit it with perfection in every detail; and here, at 
any rate, as in our best reviews of books, we are in a 
position to feel some of the satisfaction that proceeds 
from conscious superiority. 

But it has to be remembered in Paris, people go to the 
theatre automatically, whereas we pick and choose and 
have our reasons ; and therefore an honest criticism of 
a play is of little importance there. The Paris Daily 
Mail seems to have fallen into line very naturally, for I 
find in it on the morning on which I write these lines 
a puff of the Capucines revue, saying that it kept the 
house in continous laughter by its innocent fun, and 
will doubtless draw all Paris. As if (i) the laughter of 
any Paris theatre was ever continuous, and as if (ii) 



THE ONE JOKE 29 

there was ever any innocent fun at the Capucines, and as 
if (iii) all Paris would go near that theatre if there were ! 

One reason, I imagine, for the diffuseness of the 
English paper and the brevity of the French, is that 
the English have so little natural conversation that 
they find it useful to acquire news on which to base 
more ; while the French need no such assistance. The 
English again are interested in other nations, whereas 
the French care nothing for any land but France. 
There is no space in which to continue this not un- 
tempting analysis: it would require much room, for 
to understand thoroughly the difference between, say, 
the Daily Telegraph and the Journal is to understand 
the difference between England and France. 

The French comic papers one sees everywhere — ex- 
cept in people's hands. I suppose they are bought, or 
they would not be published ; but I have hardly ever 
observed a Frenchman reading one that was his own 
property. The fault of the French comic paper is 
monotony. Voltaire accused the English of having 
seventy religions and only one sauce; my quarrel with 
the French is that they have seventy sauces and only 
one joke. This joke you meet everywhere. Artists 
of diabolical cleverness illustrate it in colours every 
week; versifiers and musicians introduce it into songs; 
comic singers sing it; playwrights dramatise it; nov- 
elists and journalists weave it into prose. It is the 
oldest joke and it is ever new. Nothing can prevent a 
Parisian laughing at it as if it were as fresh as his roll. 



30 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

his journal or his petit Gervais. For a people with a 
world-wide reputation for wit, this is very strange ; but 
in some directions the French are incorrigibly juvenile, 
almost infantine. Personally I envy them for it. I 
think it must be charming never to grow out of such an 
affection for indecency that even a nursery mishap 
can still be always funny. 

One of the comic papers must, however, be exempted 
from these generalisations. Le Rire, Le Journal Amus- 
ant. La Vie Parisienne and the scores of cheaper imita- 
tions may depend for their living on the one joke; but 
L'Assiette au Beurre is more serious. L'Assiette au 
Beurre is first and foremost a satirist. It chastises 
continually, and its whip is often scorpions. Even its 
lighter numbers, chiefly given to ridicule, contain 
streaks of savagery. 

At the end of the brief Rue de Lutece is the great 
Hotel Dieu, the oldest hospital in Paris, having been 
founded in the seventh century; and to the left of it is 
one of the Paris flower markets, where much beautiful 
colour may be seen very formally and unintelligently 
arranged. Gardens are among those things that we 
order (or shall I say disorder ?) better than the French 
do. 

And now we will enter Notre Dame. 



CHAPTER III 

NOTRE DAME 

Pagan Origins and Christian Predecessors — The beginnings of Notre 
Dame — Victor Hugo — The Dangers of Renovation — Old Glass 
and New — A Wedding — The Cathedral's Great Moment — The 
Hundred Poor Girls and Louis XVI. — The Revolution — Mrs. 
Momoro, Goddess of Reason — The Legend of Our Lady of the 
Bird — Coronation of Napoleon — The Communards and the 
Students — The Treasures of the Sacristy — Three Hundred and 
Ninety-seven Steps — Quasimodo and Esmeralda — Paris at our 
Feet — The Eiffel Tower — The Devils of Notre Dame — The Pre- 
cincts — Notre Dame from the Quai. 

IF the lie de la Cite is the eye of Paris, then, to 
adapt one of Oliver Wendell Holmes' metaphors, 
Notre Dame is its pupil. It stands on ground that has 
been holy, or at least religious, for many centuries, for 
part of its site was once occupied by the original mother 
church of Paris, St. Etienne, built in the fourth century ; 
and close by, in the Place du Parvis, have been dis- 
covered the foundations of another church, dating from 
the sixth century, dedicated to Saint Marie; while 
beneath that are the remains of a Temple of Apollo or 
Jupiter, relics of which we shall see at the Cluny. The 
origin of Notre Dame, the fusion of these two churches, 
is wrapped in darkness; but Victor Hugo roundly 

31 



32 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

states that the first stone of it was laid by Charlemagne 
(who reigned from 768 to 814, and whose noble eques- 
trian statue stands just outside), and the last by Philip 
Augustus, who was a friend of our Richard Coeur de 
Lion. The more usual account of the older parts of 
the Notre Dame that one sees to-day is that the first 
stone of it was laid in 1163, in the reign of Louis VII. 
by Pope Alexander III., who chanced then to be in 
Paris engaged in the task of avoiding his enemies, the 
Ghibellines, and that in almost exactly a hundred years, 
in the reign of Saint Louis, it was completed. (I say 
completed, but as a matter of fact it is not completed 
even yet, for each of the square towers was designed 
to carry a spire, and I remember seeing at the Paris 
Exhibition of 1889 a number of drawings of the cathedral 
by young architects, with these spires added. It is, 
however, very unlikely that they will ever sprout, and 
I, for one, hope not.) 

Victor Hugo is, of course, if not the first authority 
on Notre Dame, its most sympathetic poet, lover and 
eulogist; and it seems ridiculous for me to attempt 
description when every book shop in Paris has a copy 
of his rich and fantastic romance. Book III. of which 
is an interlude in the story wholly given to the glory 
of the cathedral. You may read there not only of what 
Notre Dame is, but of what it is not and should be: 
the shortcomings of architects and the vandalism of 
mobs are alike reported. Mobs ! Paris is seared with 
cicatrices from the hands of her matricidal children, and 



NOTRE DAME 33 

Notre Dame especially so. Attempts to set her on fire 
were made not only by the revolutionaries but by 
the Communards too. These she resisted, but much of 
her statuary went during the Revolution, the assailants 
sparing the Last Judgment on the fa9ade, but account- 
ing very swiftly for a series of kings of Israel and Judah 
(who, however, have since been replaced) under the im- 
pression that they were monarchs of native growth and 
therefore not to be endured. 

The statue of the Virgin in the centre of the fa9ade, 
with Adam and Eve on each side, is not, I may say, the 
true Notre Dame of Paris: She is within the church 
— much older and simpler, on a column to the right of 
the altar as we face it. She is a sweeter and more 
winning figure than that between our first parents on 
the fa9ade. 

When I first knew Notre Dame it was, to the visitor 
from the open air, all scented darkness. And then as 
one grew accustomed to the gloom the cathedral opened 
slowly like a great flower — not so beautifully as Char- 
tres, but with its own grandeur and fascination. That 
was twenty years ago. It is not the same since it has 
been scraped and lightened within. That old clinging 
darkness has gone. There are times of day now, when 
the sun spatters on the wall, when it might be almost 
any church; but towards evening in the gloom it is 
Notre Dame de Paris again, mysterious and a little 
sinister. A bright light not only chases the shade from 
its aisles and recesses but also shows up the garishness of 



34 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

its glass. For the glass of France, usually bad, is here 
often almost at its worst. That glorious wheel window 
in the North transept — whose upper wall has indeed 
more glass than stone in it — could not well be more 
beautiful, and the rose window over the organ is beauti- 
ful too. But for the rest, the glass is either too pretty, 
as in the case of the window over the altar, so lovely in 
shape, or utterly trumpery. 

The last time I was in Notre Dame I followed a 
wedding party through the main and usually locked 
door, but although I was the first after the bride and 
her father, I was not quick enough to set foot on the 
ceremonial carpet, which a prudent verger rolled up 
literally upon their heels. It was a fortunate moment 
on which to arrive, for it meant a vista of the nave from 
the open air right up the central aisle, and that, except 
in very hot weather, is rare, and probably very rare 
indeed when the altar is fully lighted. 

The secret of Notre Dame, both within and without, 
is to be divined only by loitering in it with a mind at 
rest. To enter intent upon seeing it is useless. Outside, 
one can walk round it for ever and still be surprised by 
the splendid vagaries, humours and resource of its stone ; 
while within, one can, by making oneself plastic, gradu- 
ally but surely attain to some of the adoration that was 
felt for the sanctuary by Quasimodo himself. Let us 
sit down on one of these chairs in the gloom and meditate 
on some of the scenes which its stones have witnessed. 

While it was yet building Raymond VIII., Count of 



HISTORIC MOMENTS 35 

Toulouse, was scourged before the principal doorway for 
heresy, on a spot where the pillory long stood. That 
was in 1229. In 1248 St. Louis, on his way to the Holy 
Land, visited Notre Dame to receive his pilgrim's staff 
and scrip from the Bishop. In 1270 the body of St. 
Louis lay in state under this roof before it was carried 
to St. Denis for burial. Henry VI. of England was 
crowned here as King of France — the first and last 
English king to receive that honour. One Sunday in 
1490, while Mass was being celebrated, a man called 
Jean 1' Anglais (as we should now say, John Bull) 
snatched the Host from the priest's hand and profaned 
it: for which crime he was burnt. In 1572 Henri IV. 
(then Henri of Navarre) was married to Marguerite de 
Valois, but being a Protestant he was not allowed within 
the church, and the ceremony was therefore performed 
just outside. When, however, he entered Paris trium- 
phantly as a conqueror and a Catholic in 1594, he 
heard Mass and assisted at the Te Deum in Notre Dame 
like a true Frenchman and ironist. In 1611 his funeral 
service was celebrated here. 

Some very ugly events are in store for us ; let some- 
thing pretty intervene. On February 9th, 1779 (in the 
narrative of Louise de Grandpre, to whom the study of 
Notre Dame has been a veritable passion), a large crowd 
pressed towards the cathedral ; the ground was strewed 
with fresh grass and flowers and leaves ; the pillars were 
decorated with many coloured banners. In the choir 
the vestments of the saints were displayed : the burning 



36 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

tapers lit up the interior with a dazzHng brightness: 
the organ filled the church with joyful harmony, and 
the bells rang out with all their might. The whole 
court was present, the King himself assisting at the 
ceremony, and the galleries were full to overflowing of 
ladies of distinction in the gayest of dresses. 

Then slowly, through the door of St. Anne, en- 
tered a hundred young girls dressed in white, covered 
with long veils and with orange blossom on their heads. 
These were the hundred poor girls whom Louis XVI. 
had dowered in memory of the birth of Marie-Therese- 
Charlotte of France, afterwards Duchess of Angouleme, 
and it was his wish to assist personally at their wedding 
and to seal their marriage licences with his sword, which 
was ornamented on the handle or pommel with the 
"fleurdelys." 

Through the door of the Virgin entered at the same 
time one hundred young men, having each a sprig of 
orange blossom in his button-hole. The two rows ad- 
vanced together with measured steps, preceded by two 
Swiss, who struck the pavement heavily with their 
halberds. They advanced as far as the chancel rails, 
where each young man gave his hand to a young girl, 
his fiancee, and marched slowly before the King, bowing 
to him and receiving a bow in return. They were then 
married by the Archbishop in person. 

A very charming incident, don't you think ? Such a 
royal gift, adds Louise de Grandpre, would be very wel- 
come to-day, when there are so many girls unmarried. 




SAIN IE ANNE, LA VIERGE, ET L'ENFANT J^SUS 

LEONARDO DA VINCI 

{Louvre) 



THE CULT Oi^ REASON 37 

for the want of a dot. Every rich young girl who is 
married oqght to include in her corbeille de noces the 
dot of some poor girl. All women, remarks Louise de 
Grandpre, have a right to this element of love, which is 
sanctified by marriage, honoured by men and blessed 
by God. Christian marriage, says Louise de Grandpre, 
is a nursery not only of good Catholics but still more 
of good citizens. It is much to be wished, she concludes, 
that obstacles could be removed, because one deplores 
the depopulation of France. 

The most fantastic and discreditable episode in the 
history of Notre Dame occurred one hundred and fifteen 
years ago, when the Convention decreed the Cult of 
Reason, and Notre Dame became its Temple. A ballet 
dancer was throned on the high altar, Our Lady of 
Paris was taken down, and statues of Voltaire and Rous- 
seau stepped into the niches of the saints. Carlyle was 
never more wonderful than in the three or four pages 
that describe this cataclysm. He begins with the revolt 
of the Curate Parens, followed by Bishop Gobel of Paris 
clamouring for an honest calling since there was no 
religion but Liberty. 

"The French nation," Carlyle writes, "is of gregari- 
ous imitative nature ; it needed but a fugle-motion in 
this matter; and Goose Gobel, driven by Municipality 
and force of circumstances, has given one. What Cure 
will be behind him of Boissise ; what Bishop behind him 
of Paris .'' Bishop Gregoire, indeed, courageously de- 
clines ; to the sound of ' We force no one ; let Gregoire 



38 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

consult his conscience'; but Protestant and Romish by 
the hundred volunteer and assent. From far and near, 
all through November into December, till the work is 
accomplished, come letters of renegation, come Curates 
who ' are learning to be Carpenters,' Curates with their 
new-wedded Nuns : has not the day of Reason dawned, 
very swiftly, and become noon ? From sequestered 
Townships come Addresses, stating plainly, though in 
Patois dialect, that ' they will have no more to do with 
the black animal called Curay, animal noir ajp'pelle Curay. 
"Above all things, there come Patriotic Gifts, of 
Church-furniture. The remnant of bells, except for 
tocsin, descend from their belfries, into the National 
melting-pot to make cannon. Censers and all sacred 
vessels are beaten broad; of silver, they are fit for the 
poverty-stricken Mint; of pewter, let them become 
bullets, to shoot the 'enemies du genre humam.' Dal- 
matics of plush make breeches for him who had none; 
linen albs will clip into shirts for the Defenders of the 
Country: old-clothesmen, Jew or Heathen, drive the 
briskest trade. Chalier's Ass-Procession, at Lyons, was 
but a type of what went on, in those same days, in all 
Towns. In all Towns and Townships as quick as the 
guillotine may go, so quick goes the axe and the wrench : 
sacristies, lutrins, altar-rails are pulled down ; the Mass- 
Books torn into cartridge-papers : men dance the Car- 
magnole all night about the bonfire. All highways 
jingle with metallic Priest-tackle, beaten broad ; sent to 
the Convention, to the poverty-stricken Mint. Good 



THE GODDESS OF REASON 39 

Sainte Genevieve's Chasse is let down : alas, to be burst 
open, this' time, and burnt on the Place de Greve. 
Saint Louis's Shirt is burnt ; — might not a Defender of 
the Country have had it ? . . . 

"For the same day, while this brave Carmagnole- 
dance has hardly jigged itself out, there arrive Pro- 
cureur Chaumette and Municipals and Departmentals, 
and with them the strangest freightage: a New Re- 
ligion ! Demoiselle Candeille, of the Opera ; a woman 
fair to look upon, when well rouged; she, borne on 
palanquin shoulder-high; with red woollen nightcap; 
in azure mantle; garlanded with oak; holding in her 
hand the Pike of the Juplter-Peuple, sails in: heralded 
by white young women girt in tricolour. Let the world 
consider it ! This, O National Convention wonder of 
the universe, is our New Divinity; Goddess of Reason, 
worthy, and alone worthy of revering. Her henceforth 
we adore. Nay, were it too much to ask of an august 
National Representation that it also went with us to 
the ci-devant Cathedral called of Notre-Dame, and exe- 
cuted a few strophes in worship of her ? 

"President and Secretaries give Goddess Candeille, 
borne at due height round their platform, successively 
the Fraternal kiss; whereupon she, by decree, sails to 
the right hand of the President and there alights. And 
now, after due pause and flourishes of oratory, the Con- 
vention, gathering its limbs, does get under way in the 
required procession towards Notre-Dame ; — Reason, 
again in her litter, sitting in the van of them, borne, as one 



40 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

judges, by men in the Roman costume ; escorted by wind- 
music, red nightcaps, and the madness of the world. . . . 
" ' The corresponding Festival in the Church of Saint- 
Eustache,' says Mercier, 'offered the spectacle of a 
great tavern. The interior of the choir represented 
a landscape decorated with cottages and boskets of 
trees. Round the choir stood tables overloaded with 
bottles, with sausages, pork-puddings, pastries and 
other meats. The guests flowed in and out through 
all doors : whosoever presented himself took part of the 
good things : children of eight, girls as well as boys, 
put hand to plate, in sign of Liberty ; they drank also 
of the bottles, and their prompt intoxication created 
laughter. Reason sat in azure mantle aloft, in a serene 
manner; Cannoneers, pipe in mouth, serving her as 
acolytes. And out of doors,' continues the exaggera- 
tive man, 'were mad multitudes dancing round the 
bonfire of Chapel-balustrades, of Priests' and Canons' 
stalls ; and the dancers, — I exaggerate nothing, — the 
dancers nigh bare of breeches, neck and breast naked, 
stockings down, went whirling and spinning, like those 
Dust-vortexes, forerunners of Tempest and Destruction.' 
At Saint- Gervais Church, again, there was a terrible 
'smell of herrings'; Section or Municipality having 
provided no food, no condiment, but left it to chance. 
Other mysteries, seemingly of a Cabiric or even Paphian 
character, we leave under the Veil, which appropriately 
stretches itself ' along the pillars of the aisles,' — not to 
be lifted aside by the hand of History. 



CARLYLE 41 

"But there is one thing we should like almost better 
to understand than any other: what Reason herself 
thought of it, all the while. What articulate words 
poor Mrs. Momoro, for example, uttered; when she 
had become ungoddessed again, and the Bibliopolist 
and she sat quiet at home, at supper ? For he was an 
earnest man, Bookseller Momoro; and had notions of 
Agrarian Law. Mrs. Momoro, it is admitted, made 
one of the best Goddesses of Reason ; though her teeth 
were a little defective. — And now if the Reader will 
represent to himself that such visible Adoration of 
Reason went on 'all over the Republic,' through these 
November and December weeks, till the Church wood- 
work was burnt out, and the business otherwise com- 
pleted, he will perhaps feel sufficiently what an adoring 
Republic it was, and without reluctance quit this part 
of the subject." 

I quote in the following pages freely from Carlyle, 
because the Revolution is the most important event in 
the history of Paris and so horribly recent (you may 
still see the traces of Buonaparte's whiff of grape-shot 
on the fa9ade of St. Roch), and also because when 
there is such an historian to borrow from direct, para- 
phrase becomes a crime. None the less, I feel it my 
duty to say that the attitude of this self-protective 
contemptuous superior Scotchman towards the excit- 
able French and their hot-headed efforts for freedom 
often enrages me as much as his vivid narrative fascin- 
ates and moves. 



42 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

In 1794, when the New ReUgion had died down, the 
Church became a store for wine confiscated from the 
Royahsts. In the year following, after the whiff of 
grape-shot, the old religion was re-established. A 
strange interregnum ! How long ago was this ? — only 
one hundred and fifteen years — not four generations. 
Could it happen again ? Will it ? . . . 

These revolutionaries, it may be remarked, were not 
the only licentious rioters that Notre Dame had known, 
for in its early days it was the scene every year of the 
Fete des Fous, an orgy of gluttony and conviviality, in 
which, however, one who was a true believer on all other 
days might partake. 

After these lurid saturnalia it is pleasant again to dip 
into the gentle pages of Louise de Grandpre, where, 
among other legends of Notre Dame, is the pretty story 
of a statue of theVirgin — now known as the Virgin with 
the bird. In the Rue Chanoinesse there lived a young 
woman, very devout, who came every day to pray. 
She brought with her her son, a little fellow, very 
wide awake and full of spirits : his mother had taught 
him to say his prayers. Cyril would close his little 
hands to say his "Ave Maria," and he would throw 
a kiss to the little Jesus, his dear friend, complaining 
sometimes to his mother that the little Jesus would not 
play with him. " You are not good enough yet," said 
his mother ; " Jesus plays only with the little children in 
Paradise." 

A very severe winter fell and the young mother 



THE VIRGIN WITH THE BIRD 43 

fell ill and no longer came to church. Cyril never saw 
the little Jesus now, but he often thought of Him as he 
played at the foot of his mother's bed. On one of those 
days when the sky was dull and leaden and the air 
heavy and depressing, and the poor woman was rather 
worse and more hopeless than usual, she became so 
weak they thought each moment would be her last. 

Cyril could not understand why his mother no longer 
smiled at him or stroked his hair or called him to her. 
With his little heart almost bursting and his eyes full 
of tears, he said, "I will go and tell the little Jesus of 
my trouble." 

While they were attending to the poor mother the 
child disappeared. He ran as fast as his little legs 
would carry him and entered the cathedral by the 
cloister door, crossed the transept, and was soon at the 
foot of the statue of the Virgin Mary, where he was 
accustomed to say his prayers with his mother. " Little 
Jesus," said he, " Thou art very happy. Thou hast Thy 
Mother; mine, who was so good, is always asleep now 
and I am alone. Little Jesus, wake my mother up, and 
I will give you my best toys, morning and evening I 
will send you the sweetest kiss and say my best prayer. 
And look, to begin with, I have brought you my 
favourite bird: he is tame and will eat the golden 
crumbs of Paradise out of your hand." At the same 
time he stretched out his little closed hand towards 
Jesus. 

The divine child stretched out His hand and Cyril let 



44 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

his beloved little bird escape. The bird, who had a 
lovely coloured plumage, flew straight to the hand of 
the Infant Christ and has remained there to this day. 
The Virgin smiled on the child, and her white stone 
robe at that moment became the same colour as the 
bird's plumage. 

Cyril, with his heart very full, got up to go out, but 
before leaving the church turned round to have one 
more look at his little bird he loved so dearly: he was 
struck with delight and astonishment when he heard 
the favoured bird singing one of its sweetest songs in 
honour of the Virgin and her Child. 

When Cyril returned to his home he went into his 
mother's room without making the least noise to see if 
she was still asleep. The young mother was sitting up- 
right in her bed, her head, still very bad, resting on a 
pillow, but her wide-open eyes were looking for her 
little one. 

"I was quite sure the little Jesus would wake you 
up," said Cyril, climbing on to her bed. " I took Him 
my bird this morning to take care of for me in the 
Garden of Paradise." 

Life once more returned to the poor woman and she 
kissed her boy. 

When you next go to Notre Dame, Louise de 
Grandpre adds, be sure to visit the Vierge a I'oiseau, 
who always hears the prayers of the little ones. 

It was in 1804 that Notre Dame enjoyed one of 
its most magnificent moments — at the coronation of 



THE EMPEROR CROWNED 45 

Napoleon and Josephine Beauharnais. The Duchess 
d'Abrante;^ wrote an account of the ceremony which, in 
French, is both picturesque and rapturous. " The pope 
was the first to arrive. At the moment of his entering 
the cathedral, the clergy intoned Tu es Petrus, and 
this solemn chant made a deep impression on all. Pius 
the VII. advanced to the end of the cathedral with a 
majestic yet humble grace. . . . The moment when 
all eyes were most drawn to the Altar steps was when 
Josephine received the crown from the Emperor and 
was solemnly consecrated by him Empress of the French. 
When it was time for her to take an active part in the 
great ceremony, the Empress descended from the throne 
and advanced towards the altar, where the Emperor 
awaited her. ... 

" I saw," the Duchess continues, "all that I have just 
told you, with the eyes of Napoleon. He was radiant 
with joy as he watched the Empress advancing towards 
him ; and when she knelt . . . and the tears she could 
not restrain fell upon her clasped hands, raised more to- 
wards him than towards God : at this moment, when 
Napoleon, or rather Bonaparte, was for her her true 
providence, at this instant there was between these two 
beings one of those fleeting moments of life, unique, 
which fill up the void of years. 

"The Emperor invested with perfect grace every 
action of the ceremony he had to perform: above all, 
at the moment of crowning the Empress. This was to 
be done by the Emperor himself, who after receiving 



46 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

the little closed crown surmounted by a cross, had to 
place it on his own head first, and then place it on the 
Empress's head. He did this in such a slow, gracious 
and courtly manner that it was noticed by all. But at 
the supreme moment of crowning her who was to him 
his lucky star, he was almost coquettish, if I may use 
the term. He placed the little crown, which surmounted 
the diadem of brilliants, on her head, first putting it on, 
then taking it off and putting it on again, as if assuring 
himself that it should rest lightly and softly on her. 

"But Napoleon," the Duchess concludes, "when it 
came to his own crown, hastily took it from the Pope's 
hands and placed it haughtily on his own head — a pro- 
ceeding which doubtless startled his Holiness." 

Ten years pass and we find Louis XVIII. and his 
family attending Mass at the same altar. Twenty-six 
years later, in 1840, a service was held to commemorate 
the restoration of the ashes of the Emperor to French 
soil, and in 1853 Napoleon III. and Eugenie de Montijo 
were married here, under circumstances of extraordinary 
splendour. And then we come to plunder and lawless- 
ness again. On Good Friday, 1871, while Pere Olivier 
was preaching, a company of Communards entered and 
from thenceforward for a while the cathedral was occu- 
pied by the soldiers. For some labyrinthine reason the 
destruction of Notre Dame by fire was decided upon, 
and a huge pile of chairs and other material soaked in 
petrol was erected (this was only thirty-eight years ago), 
and no doubt the building would have been seriously 




LA PENSlfcE 

RODIN 

(,Luxembo7irg) 



SACRED RELICS 47 

injured, if not destroyed, had not the medical students 
from the Hotel Dieu, close by, rushed in and saved it. 

Among the preachers of Notre Dame was St. Dominic, 
to whom in the pulpit the Virgin appeared, bringing 
with her his sermon all to his hand in an effulgent 
volume; here also preached Pere Hyacinthe, but with 
less direct assistance. 

That the Treasury is an object of interest to English- 
speaking visitors is proved by the notice at the door: 
" The Persons who desire to visit the Tresor are kindly 
requested to wait the guide here for a few minutes, 
himself charged of the visit ; " but I see no good reason 
why anyone should enter it. Those, however, that do 
will see vessels of gold, much paraphernalia of ecclesi- 
astical pride and pomp, and certain holy relics. The 
crown of thorns is here, given to St. Louis by the King 
of Constantinople and carried to Notre Dame, on the 
18th of August, 1239, by the barefoot king. Here 
also are pieces of the Cross, for the protection of which 
St. Louis built Sainte Chapelle, the relics afterwards 
being transferred to Notre Dame; and here is a nail 
from the Cross — one of the nails of which even an 
otherwise sceptical Catholic can be sure, because it was 
given to Charlemagne by Constantine. Charlemagne 
gave it to Aix la Chapelle, Charles the Bold brought it 
from Aix to St. Denis, and from St. Denis it came 
to Notre Dame, where it is enclosed in a crystal case. 

The menace of 397 spiral steps in a narrow, dark and 
almost airless turret, is no light matter, but it is essential 



48 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

to see Paris from the summit of Notre Dame. That 
view is the key to the city, and the traveller who means 
to study this city as it deserves, penetrating into the 
past as industriously and joyously as into the present, 
must begin here. He will see it all beneath him and 
around him in its varying ages, and he will be able to 
proceed methodically and intelligently. Immediately 
below is the Parvis, the scene of the interrupted exe- 
cution of Esmeralda, and it was from one of the galleries 
below that Quasimodo slung himself down to her rescue. 
Here, where we are now standing, she must often have 
stood, looking for her faithless Phoebus. Only one of 
the bells that Quasimodo rang is still in the tower. 

Hugo draws attention to the shape of the island, like 
that of a ship moored to the mainland by various 
bridges, and he suggests that the ship on the Paris 
scutcheon (the ship that is to be seen in the design of 
the lamps around the Opera) is derived from this re- 
semblance. It may be so. On each side of us, north 
and south, are the oldest parts of Paris that still stand ; 
in the north the Marais, behind the Tour Saint-Jacques, 
and in the south the district between the Rue de Bievre 
and the boulevard St. Michel. On the south side of 
the river lived the students, clerics and professors — 
Dante himself among them, in this very Rue de Bievre, 
as we shall see ; while in the Marais, as we shall also see, 
dwelt the nobility. West of St. Eustache in the Middle 
Ages was nothing but waste ground and woodland, a 
kind of Bois, at the edge of which, where the Louvre 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW 49 

now spreads itself, was a royal hunting lodge, the germ 
of the present vast palace. 

When the Marais passed out of favour, the aristocracy 
crossed the river to the St. Germain quarter, which 
clusters around the twin spires of St. Clotilde that now 
rise in the south-west. And then the Rue Saint-Honore 
and the Grands Boulevards were built, and so the city 
grew and changed until the two culminating touches 
were put to it : by M. Eiffel, who built the tower, and 
M. Abadie, architect of the beautiful and unreal Basi- 
lique du Sacre-Coeur that crowns the heights of Mont- 
martre. 

The chief eminences that one sees are, near at hand, 
the needle-spire of Sainte Chapelle, in the north the 
grey mass of St. Eustache, the Chatelet Theatre (ad- 
vertising at this moment "Les Pilules du Diable" in 
enormous letters), the long roofs of the Halles, and the 
outline of the medieval Tour Saint-Jacques. Farther 
west the bulky Opera, then, right in front, the Tro- 
cadero's twin towers, with Mont Valerien looming up 
immediately between them ; and so round to the south 
■ — to the Invalides and St. Clotilde, the Pantheon and 
the heights of Genevieve. A wonderful panorama. 

Of all the views of Paris I think that from Notre 
Dame is the most interesting, because the point is most 
central; but the views from Montmartre, from the 
Tour Saint-Jacques, the Pantheon and the Arc de 
Triomphe should be studied too. The Eiffel Tower has 
dwarfed all those eminences ; they lie far below it, mere 



50 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

ant-hills in the landscape, although they seem high 
enough when one essays their steps; yet, although it 
makes them so lowly, these older coigns of vantage 
should not for a moment be considered as superseded, 
for each does for its immediate vicinage what the 
Eiffel giant can never do. From the Arc de Triomphe, 
for example, you command all the luxurious activity 
of the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne and the wonderful 
prospect of the Champs Elysees, ending with the Louvre ; 
and from the Pantheon you may examine the roofs of 
the Latin Quarter and see the children at play in the 
gardens of the Luxembourg. 

The merit of the Eiffel Tower is that he shows you 
not only Paris to the ultimate edges in every direction 
save on the northern slopes of Montmartre, but he shows 
you (almost) France too. How long the Eiffel Tower 
is to stand I cannot say, but I for one shall feel sorry 
and bereft when he ceases to straddle over Paris. For 
though he is vulgar he is great, and he has come to be 
a symbol. When he goes, he will make a strange rent 
in the sky. This year (1909) is his twentieth: he and 
I first came to Paris at the same time; but his life is 
serene to-day compared with what it was in his infancy. 
At that time his platforms were congested from morn 
to dusk; but few visitors now ascend even to the first 
stage and hardly any to the top. No visitor, however, 
who wants to synthesise Paris should omit this adven- 
ture. Only in a balloon can one get a better view, but 
in no balloon adrift from this green earth would I, for 



THE DEVILS 51 

one, ever trust myself, although I must confess that the 
procession of those aerial monsters that floated serenely 
past the Eiffel Tower on the last occasion that I climbed 
it, suggested nothing but content and security. They 
rose one by one from the bosky depths of the Bois, 
five miles away, gradually disentangled themselves from 
the surrounding verdure, assumed their independent 
buoyant rotundity and came straight to my waiting 
eye. In an hour I counted fifteen, and by the 
time the last was free of the earth the first was 
away over Vincennes, with the afternoon sun turning 
its mud-coloured silk to burnished gold. Paris has 
always one balloon floating above her, but fifteen is 
exceptional. 

Notre Dame remains, however, the most important 
height to scale, for Notre Dame is interesting in every 
particular, it is soaked in history and mystery. Notre 
Dame is alone in the possession of its devils — those 
strange stone fantasies that Meryon discovered. Al- 
though every effort is made to familiarise us with them 
— although they sit docilely as paper-weights on our 
tables — nothing can lessen the monstrous diablerie 
of these figures, which look down on Paris with such 
greed and cruelty, cunning and cynicism. The best 
known, the most saturnine, of all, who leans on the 
parapet exactly by the door at the head of the steps, 
fixes his inhuman gaze on the dome of the Invalides. 
Is it to be wondered at that he wears that ex- 
pression ? 



52 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

A small family dwells in a room just behind this 
chimera, subsisting by the sale of picture-postcards. It 
is a strange abode, and an imaginative child would have 
a good start in life there. To him at any rate the 
demons no doubt would soon lose their terrors and 
become as friendly as the heavenly host that are posed 
so radiantly and confidently on the ascent to the fleche 

— perhaps even more so. But to the stranger they 
must remain cruel and horrible, creating a sense of 
disquietude and alarm that it is surely the business of 
a cathedral to allay. Curious anomaly ! Let us descend. 

Before leaving the He de la Cite, the Rue Chanoinesse, 
to the north of Notre Dame, leading out of the Rue 
d'Arcole (near a blackguard pottery shop), should be 
looked at. The cloisters of Notre Dame once extended 
to this street and covered the ground between it and the 
cathedral. The canons, or chanoines, lived here, and 
there are still a few attractive old houses; but the 
rebuilder is very busy just now. At No. 10, Fulbert, 
the uncle of Heloise, is said to have lived ; at No. 18 
was the Tour Dagobert, a fifteenth-century building, 
by climbing which one had an excellent view of Notre 
Dame, but in the past year it has been demolished and 
business premises cover its site. At No. 26 are (or 
were) the ruins of the twelfth-century chapel of St. 
Aignan, where the faithful, evicted from Notre Dame 
by the Reign of Reason, celebrated Mass in secret. 
Saint Bernard has preached here. The adjacent streets 

— the Rue de Colombe, Rue Massillon, Rue des Ursins 




BALTHASAR CASTIGLIONE 

RAPHAEL 

{Louvre) 



LEAVING NOTRE DAME 53 

and Rue du Cloitre-Notre-Dame — have also very old 
houses. 

For the best view of the exterior of Notre Dame one 
must take the Quai de I'Archeveche, from which all 
its intricacies of masonry may be studied — its but- 
tresses solid and flying, its dependencies, its massive 
bulk, its grace and strength. 



CHAPTER IV 

ST. LOUIS AND HIS ISLAND 

The Morgue — The He St. Louis — Old Residents — St. Louis, the 
King — The Golden Legend — Religious Intolerance — Posthu- 
mous Miracles — Statue of Barye — The Quai des Celestins. 

ON the way from Notre Dame to the He of St. Louis 
we pass a small official-looking building at the 
extreme east end of the lie de la Cite. It is the 
Morgue. 

But the Morgue is now closed to idle gazers, and you 
win your way to a sight of that melancholy slab with 
the weary bodies on it and the little jet of water play- 
ing on each, only by the extreme course of having missed 
a relation whom you suspected of designs upon his own 
life or whom you imagine has been the victim of foul 
play. No doubt the authorities were well advised (as 
French municipal authorities nearly always are) in clos- 
ing the Morgue ; but I think I regret it. The impulse 
to drift into that low and sinister building behind Notre 
Dame was partly morbid, no doubt; but the ordinary 
man sees not only too little death, but is too seldom in 
the presence of such failure as for the most part governs 
here : so that the opportunity it gave was good. 

54 



A DERELICT ISLAND 55 

I still recall very vividly, in spite of all the millions 
of living fates that should, one feels, have blurred one's 
prosperous vision, several of the dead faces that lay 
behind the glass of this forlorn side-show of the great 
entertainment which we call Paris. An old man with a 
white imperial ; more than one woman of that dreadful 
middle-age which the Seine has so often terminated ; a 
young man who had been stabbed. . . . Well, the 
Morgue is closed to the public now, and very likely no 
one who reads this book will ever enter it. 

The lie St. Louis, to put it bluntly, is just as common- 
place as the He de la Cite is imposing. It has a mono- 
tony very rare in the older parts of Paris : it is all white 
houses that have become dingy : houses that once were 
attractive and wealthy and are now squalid. One of the 
largest of the old palaces is to-day a garage; there is 
not a single house now occupied by the kind of tenant 
for which it was intended. Such declensions are always 
rather melancholy, even when, as, for example, at Ville- 
neuve, near Avignon, there is the beauty of decay too. 
But on the He St. Louis there is no beauty : it belongs 
to a dull period of architecture and is now duller for its 
dirt. Standing on the Quai d'Orleans, however, one 
catches Notre Dame against the evening sky, across the 
river, as nowhere else, and it is necessary to seek the He 
if only to appreciate the fitness of the Morgue's position. 

The island was first called L'lle Notre Dame, and was 
uninhabited until 1614. It was then developed and 
joined to the He de la Cite and the mainland by bridges. 



56 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

The chief street is the Rue St. Louis, at No. 3 in which 
hved Fenelon. The church of St. Louis is interesting 
for a reHc of the unfortunate Louise de la ValHere. At 
No. 17 on the Quai d'Anjou is the Hotel Lauzan, which 
the city of Paris has now acquired, and in which once 
Hved together for a while the authors of Mademoiselle de 
Maupin and Les Fleurs de Mai. 

Of Saint Louis, or Louis IX., who gives his name to 
this island, and whose hand is so visible in the He de la 
Cite, it is right to know something, for he was the father 
of Paris. Louis was born in 1215, the year of Magna 
Charta, and succeeded to the throne while still a boy. 
The early years of his reign were restless by reason of 
civil strife and war with England, in which he was victor 
(at Tailleburg, at Saintes and at Blaize) , and then came 
his departure for the Holy Land, with 40,000 men, in 
fulfilment of a vow made rashly on a sick-bed. The 
King was blessed at Notre Dame, as we have seen, and 
departed in 1248, leaving his mother Blanche de Castile 
as regent. But the Crusade was a failure, and he was 
glad to return (with only the ghost of his army) and to 
settle down for the first time seriously to the cares of 
his throne. 

He was a good if prejudiced king: he built wisely 
and well, not only Sainte Chapelle, as we have seen, but 
the Sorbonne ; he devised useful statutes ; he established 
police in Paris ; and, more perhaps than all, he made 
Frenchmen very proud of France. So much for his ad- 
ministrative virtues. When we come to his saintliness 



A ROYAL SAINT 57 

I would stand aside, for is he not in The Golden Legend ? 
Listen to ' William Caxton : " He forced himself to 
serve his spirit by diverse castigation or chastising, he 
used the hair many times next his flesh, and when he 
left it for cause of over feebleness of his l)Ody, at the 
instance of his own confessor, he ordained the said con- 
fessor to give to the poor folk, as for recompensation of 
every day that he failed of it, forty shillings. He fasted 
always the Friday and namely in time of lent and ad- 
vent he abstained him in those days from all manner 
of fish and from fruits, and continually travailed and 
pained his body by watchings, orisons, and other secret 
abstinences and disciplines. Humility, beauty of all vir- 
tues, replenished so strong in him, that the more better he 
waxed, so, as David, the more he showed himself meek 
and humble, and more foul he reputed him before God. 
" For he was accustomed on every Saturday to wash 
with his own hands, in a secret place, the feet of some 
poor folk, and after dried them with a fair towel, and 
kissed much humbly and semblably, their hands, distri- 
buting or dealing to every one of them a certain sum of 
silver, also to seven score poor men which daily came to 
his court, he administered meat and drink with his own 
hands, and were fed abundantly on the vigils solemn. 
And on some certain days in the year to two hundred 
poor, before that he ate or drank, he with his own hands 
administered and served them both of meat and drink. 
He ever had, both at his dinner and supper, three ancient 
poor, which ate nigh to him, to whom he charitably 



58 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

sent of such meats as were brought before him, and 
sometimes the dishes and meats that the poor of our 
Lord had touched with their hands, and special the sops 
of which he fain ate, made their remnant or rehef to be 
brought before him, to the endHhat he should eat it; 
and yet again to honour and worship the name of our 
Lord on the poor folk, he was not ashamed to eat their 
relief." 

Qualities have their defects, and such a frame of mind 
as that can lead, for all the good motive, to injustice 
and even cruelty. Christ's lesson of the Roman coin 
is forgotten as quickly as any. Louis' passion for 
holiness, which became a kind of self-indulgence, led 
him into a hard and ugly intolerance and acts of severe 
oppression against those whom he styled heretics. His 
short way with the Jews recalled indeed those of our 
own King John, who was very nearly his contemporary. 
I know not if he pulled out their teeth, but he once 
did what must have been as bad, if not worse, for he 
published an ordinance " for the good of his soul," re- 
mitting to his Christian subjects the third of their 
debts to the Jews; and he also expressed it as his 
opinion that "a layman ought not to dispute with an 
unbeliever, but strike him with a good sword across the 
body," the most practical expression of muscular sec- 
tarianism that I know. Louis' religious fanaticism was, 
however, his end ; for he was so ill-advised as to under- 
take a new Crusade against the unbelievers of Morocco, 
and there, while laying siege to Tunis, he died of the 






ai o 

o ^ 
2; 



POSTHUMOUS MIRACLES 59 

plague. That was in 1270, when he was only fifty- 
five. 

Twenty-seven years later Pope Boniface the Eighth 
raised him to the Calendar of Saints, his day being 
August 25th. But according to The Golden Legend, 
which I for one implicitly believe (how can one help it, 
written as it is ?), the posthumous miracles of Louis did 
not wait for Rome. They began at once. "On that 
day that S. Louis was buried," we there read, " a woman 
of the diocese of Sens recovered her sight, which she had 
lost and saw nothing, by the merits and prayers of the 
said debonair and meedful king. Not long after, a 
young child of Burgundy both dumb and deaf of kind, 
coming with others to the sepulchre or grave of the 
saint, beseeching him of help, kneeling as he saw that the 
others did, and after a little while that he thus kneeled 
with his ears opened and heard, and his tongue redressed 
and spake well. In the same year a woman blind was 
led to the said sepulchre, and by the merits of the saint 
recovered her sight. Also that same year two men and 
five woman, beseeching S. Louis of help, recovered the 
use of going, which they had lost by divers sickness and 
languors. 

" In the year that S. Louis was put or written in the 
catalogue of the holy confessors, many miracles worthy 
to be prized befell in divers parts of the world at the 
invocation of him, by his merits and by his prayers. 
Another time at Evreux a child fell under the wheel of 
a water-mill. Great multitude of people came thither. 



60 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

and supposing to have kept him from drowning, invoked 
God, our Lady and his saints to help the said child, but 
our Lord willing his saint to be enhanced among so 
great multitude of people, was there heard a voice say- 
ing that the said child, named John, should be vowed 
unto S. Louis. He then, taken out of the water, was 
by his mother borne to the grave of the saint, and after 
her prayer done to S. Louis, her son began to sigh and 
was raised on life." 

We leave the island by the Pont Sully, first looking 
at the statue of Barye, the sculptor of Barbizon, many 
of whose best small bronzes are in the Louvre (to say 
nothing of the shops of the dealers in the Rue LafStte) 
and several of his large groups in the public gardens of 
Paris, one, for example, being near the Orangery in the 
Tuileries. Barye's monument standing here at the east 
end of the He St. Louis balances Henri IV. at the west 
end of the He de la Cite. 

Crossing to the mainland we ought to look at the 
old houses on the Quai des Celestins, particularly the 
old Hotel de la Valette, now the College Massillon, into 
whose courtyard one should boldly peep. At No. 32 
we touch very interesting history, for here stood, two 
and a half centuries ago, Moliere's Illustre Theatre, 
the stage entrance to which may be seen at 15 Rue de 
I'Ave Marie. 

And now for the Marais. 



CHAPTER V 

THE MARAIS 

A ;£32,ooo,ooo Rebuilding Scheme — Romance and Intrigue — The 
Temple — The Archives — Illustrious Handwriting — The ' ' Uncle " 
of Paris — The Wall of Philip Augustus — Old Palaces now 
Rookeries — The Carnavalet — The Perfect Museum — Latude — 
Napoleon — Madame de Sevigne — Chained Streets — John Law — 
The Rue St. Martin. 

THE Marais is that district of old streets and palaces 
which is bounded on the south by the .Rue St. 
Antoine, on the east by the Rue du Turenne, on the 
west by the Rue du Temple, and fades away in the 
north somewhere below the Rue de Bretagne. The 
Rue des Francs Bourgeois is its central highway east 
and west. 

It was my original intention to devote a large propor- 
tion of this book to this fascinating area — to describe 
it minutely street by street — and I have notes for that 
purpose which would fill half the volume alone. But 
the publication of the £32,000,000 scheme for renovat- 
ing this and other of the older parts of Pairs (one of 
the principal points in which is the isolation of the 
Musee Carnavalet, which is the heart of the Marais), 
coming just at that time, acted like a douche of iced 

61 



62 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

water, and I abandoned the project. Instead therefore 
I merely say enough (I hope) to impress on every reader 
the desu'abihty, the necessity of hastening to the Rue 
des Francs Bourgeois and its dependencies, and refer 
them to the two French writers whom I have found 
most useful in my own researches — the Marquis de 
Rochegude, author of a Guide Pratique a travers le 
Vieux Paris (Hachette) and the Vicomte de Villebresme, 
author of Ce que reste du Vieux Paris (Flammarion). 
To these I would add M. Georges Cain, the director of 
the Carnavalet, to whom I refer later. 

No matter where one enters the Marais, it offers the 
same alluring prospect of narrow streets and high and 
ancient houses, once the abode of the nobility and 
aristocracy, but now rookeries and factories — and, over 
all, that sense of thorough insanitation which so often 
accompanies architectural charm in France and Italy 
and which seems to matter so little to Latin people. 
Hence the additional wickedness of destroying this 
district. The Municipality, however, having acquired 
superfine foreign notions as to public health, will doubt- 
less have its way. 

Wherever one enters the Marais one finds the traces 
of splendour, intrigue and romance ; howsoever modern 
conditions may have robbed them of their glory, to walk 
in these streets is, for anyone with any imagination, to 
re-create Dumas. For the most part one must make 
one's own researches, but here and there a tablet may 
be found, such as that over the entrance to a narrow 



SYMMETRY 63 

and sinister passage at No. 38 Rue des Francs Bourgeois, 
which reads thus: "Dans ce passage en sortant de 
I'hotel Barbette le Due Louis d'Orleans frere du Roi 
Charles VI. fut assassine par Jean Sans Peur, Due de 
Bourgogne, dans le nuit du 23 ou 24 Novembre, 1407." 
Five hundred years ago ! That gives an idea of the 
antiseptic properties of the air of Paris. The Duke 
of Orleans, I might remark here, was symmetrically 
avenged, for his son assassinated Jean Sans Peur on the 
bridge of Montereau all in due course. 

The Marais was at its prime from the middle of the 
fifteenth century to the beginning of the eighteenth; 
at which period the Faubourg St. Antoine was aban- 
doned by fashion for the Faubourg St. Germain, as we 
shall see when the time comes to wander in the Rue de 
Varenne and the Rue de Grenelle on the other side of 
the river. 

Let us enter the Marais by the Rue du Temple at 
the Square du Temple, a little south of the Place de la 
Republique. One must make a beginning somewhere. 
The Temple, which has now disappeared, was the head- 
quarters of the Knight Templars of France before their 
suppression in 1307: it then became the property of 
the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, who held it until 
the Revolution, when all property seems to have changed 
hands. Rousseau found sanctuary here in 1765 ; and 
here Louis XVIL and Marie Antoinette were imprisoned 
for a while in 1792. More tragic by far, it was here 
that the little Dauphin died. Napoleon pulled down 



64 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

the Tower : Louis XVIII. on his accession awarded the 
property to the Princess de Conde, and Louis-PhiHppe, 
on his, took it back again. 

The Rue du Temple has many interesting old houses 
and associations. Just north of the Square is the 
church of Elizabeth of Hungary, the first stone of 
which was laid in 1628 by a less sainted monarch, 
Marie de Medicis. It is worth entering to see its 
carved wood scenes from Scripture history. At 193 
once lived Madame du Barry; at 153 was, in the reign 
of Louis XV., the barreau des vinaigrettes — the vinai- 
grette being the forerunner of the cab, a kind of sedan 
chair and jinrickshaw ; at 62 died Anne de Montmorency, 
Constable of France, in the Hotel de Montmorency. 

From the Square du Temple we may also walk down 
the Rue des Archives, parallel with the Rue du Temple 
on the east. This street now extends to the Rue de 
Rivoli. It is rich in old palaces, some with very beauti- 
ful relics of their grandeur still in existence, such as the 
staircase at No. 78. The fountain at the corner of the 
Rue des Haudriettes dates only from 1705. At No. 
58 is the gateway, restored, of the old palace of the 
Constable de Clisson, built in 1371. Later it belonged 
to the de Guise family and then to the de Soubise. 
The Revolution made it the property of the State, and 
Napoleon directed that the Archives should be pre- 
served here. The entrance is in the Rue des Francs 
Bourgeois, across the green court; but do not go on a 
cold day, because there is no heating process, owing to 




L'HOMME AU GANT 

TITIAN 

{Louvre) 



MOMENTOUS DOCUMENTS 65 

the age of the building and the extraordinary value of 
the collections. The rooms in themselves are of some 
interest for their Louis XV. decoration and mural 
paintings, but one goes of course primarily to see the 
handwriting of the great. Here is the Edict of Nantes 
signed by Henri IV. ; a quittance signed by Diana 
de Poictiers, very boldly; a letter to Parliament from 
Louis XL, in his atrocious hand; a codicil added by 
Saint Louis to his will on board a vessel on the coast 
of Sardinia, exquisitely written. The scriveners have 
rather gone off than improved since those days ; look at 
the "Registre des Enquetions royaux en Normande," 
1248, for work of delicate minuteness. Marie 
Therese, wife of Louis XIV., wrote an attractive hand, 
but Louis XIV. 's own signature is dull. Voltaire is 
discovered to have written very like Swinburne. 

Relics of the Revolution abound. Here is Marie 
Antoinette's last letter to the Princess Elizabeth, 
written the night before she was executed; a letter 
of Petion, bidding his wife farewell, and of Barbaroux 
to his mother, both stained with tears. Here also is 
the journal of Louis XVI., 1766-1792, and the order 
for his inhumation (as Louis Capet), 21st January, 1793. 
His will is here too; and so is Napoleon's. I say no 
more because the collection is so vast, and also because 
a franc buys a most admirable catalogue, with fac- 
similes, beginning with the monogram of Charlemagne 
himself. 

On leaving the Archives we may take an easterly 



66 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

course along the Rue des Francs Bourgeois, with the 
idea of making eventually for the Carna valet ; but it is 
well to loiter, for this is the very heart of the Marais. 
One's feet will always be straying down byways that 
call for closer notice, and it is very likely that the 
Carnavalet will not be reached till to-morrow after all. 
Indeed, let "Hasta manana" be your Marais motto. 

One of the first buildings that one notices is the 
Mont de Piete, the chief of the Paris pawnbroking 
establishments. I am told that the system is an ad- 
mirable one; but my own experience is against this 
opinion, for I was unable on a day of unexpected stress 
at the end of 1907 to effect an entrance at the very 
reasonable hour of a quarter past five. The closing of 
the English pawnbrokers at seven — the very moment 
at which the ordinary man's financial troubles begin — 
is suflSciently uncivilised ; but to cease to lend money 
on excellent gold watches at five o'clock in the after- 
noon (with the bank closed on the morrow, too, being 
New Year's Day) is a scandal. My adventures in 
search of relief among French tradesmen who had been 
at my feet as recently as yesterday, before supplies had 
broken down, I shall never forget, nor shall I relate 
them here. This aims at being an agreeable book. 

It is interestino- to note that one of the entrances to 
the Mont de Piete is reserved for clients who wish to 
raise money on deeds, and I have seen cabmen very busy 
in bringing to it people who quite shamelessly hold their 
papers in their hands. And why on earth not? And 



OLD PARIS 67 

yet your English pawner seldom reaches the Three 
Brass Balls with such publicity or by any other medium 
than his poor feet. Our Mont de Piete for the respect- 
able is the solicitor's office. A trace of the wall, and one 
of its towers, built around Paris by Philip Augustus 
in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, may be seen in 
the courtyard of the Mont de Piete; but the wall is 
better observed in the Rue des Guillemites, at No. 14. 

All about here once stood a large convent of the 
Blancs-Manteaux, or Servants of the Virgin Mary, 
an order which came into being in Florence in the 
thirteenth century and of whom the doctor Benazzi 
was the general. After the Blancs-Manteaux came 
the Hermits of St. Guillaume, or Guillemites, and 
later the Benedictines took it over. Next the Mont de 
Piete at the back is the church of the Blancs-Manteaux 
in its modern form. It is plain and unattractive, but 
it wears an air of some purpose, and one feels that it 
is much used in this very popular and not too happy 
quarter. Just opposite, in a doorway, I watched an 
old chiffonniere playing with a grey rabbit. Every inch 
of this neighbourhood offers priceless material to the 
hand of Mr. Muirhead Bone. 

One of the old tavern signs of Paris is to be seen 
close by, at the corner of the Rue des Blancs-Manteaux 
and the Rue des Archives: a soldier standing by a 
cannon, representing I'homme arme. It is a comfort- 
able little retreat and should be encouraged for such 
antiquarian piety. 



68 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

The pretty turret at the corner of the Rue des 
Francs Bourgeois and the Rue Vieille du Temple 
marks the site of the hotel of Jean de la Baule. Turn- 
ing to the left up the Rue Vieille du Temple we come 
at No. 87 to a very beautiful ancient mansion, with a 
spacious courtyard, built in 1712 for the Cardinal de 
Rohan. It is now the national printing works : hence 
the statue of Gutenburg in the midst. Visitors are 
allowed to see the house itself once a week, but I have 
not done so. You will probably not be interfered with 
if you just step to the inside of the second courtyard to 
see the bas-relief of the steeds of Apollo. Nos. 102 to 
108 in the same street mark the remains of another 
fine eighteenth-century hotel. There is also a house 
which one should see in the lower part of the street, 
on the south side of the Francs Bourgeois — No. 47, 
where by penetrating boldly one comes to a perfect 
little courtyard with some beautiful carvings in it, and, 
above, a green garden, tended, when I was there, by a 
Little Sister of the Poor. The principal courtyard has 
a very interesting bas-relief of Romulus and Remus at 
their usual meal, and also an old sundial. This palace 
was built in 1638. 

Returning to the Rue des Francs Bourgeois, we find 
at No. 38 the little impasse already referred to, where 
the Due d'Orleans was assassinated. At No. 30 is a 
very impressive red-brick palace with a courtyard, now 
a nest of ofiices and factories, once the hotel of Jean de 
Fourcy. A bust of Henri IV. has a place there. At 



STREETS IN THE MAKING 69 

No. 25 on the other side (seen better from the Rue 
Pavee) is an even more splendid abode — now also cut 
up into a rookery — the Hotel de Lamoignon, once 
Hotel d'Angouleme, built for Diane, Duchess of An- 
gouleme, daughter of Henri II. : hence the symbols of 
the chase in the ornamentation. The hotel passed to 
President de Lamoignon in 1655. 

And here is the Carnavalet — the spacious building, 
with a garden and modern additions, on the left — once 
the Hotel des Ligneries, afterwards the Hotel de Ker- 
nevenoy, afterwards the Hotel de Sevigne, and now the 
museum of the city of Paris. The only way to under- 
stand Paris is to make repeated visits to this treasure- 
house. You will find new entertainment and instruction 
every time, because every time you will carry thither 
impressions of new objects of interest whose past you 
will want to explore. For in the Carnavalet every 
phase of the life of the city, from the days of the 
Romans and the Merovingians to our own, is illustrated 
in one way or another. The pictures of streets alone 
are inexhaustible: the streets that one knows to-day 
as they were yesterday and the day before yesterday 
and hundreds of years ago; the streets one has just 
walked through on the way here, in their stages of 
evolution: such, for example, as the picture of the 
wooden Pont des Meuniers in 1380 with the Tour Saint- 
Jacques behind it; the streets with dramas of the 
Revolution in progress, such as the picture of the em- 
blems of Royalty being burned before the statue of 



70 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

Liberty (where the Luxor column now stands) in the 
Place de la Concorde on August 10th, 1793; such as 
the picture of the famous sermon being preached in 
the course of the Jeu de Paume on June 20th, 1789; 
such as the picture of the funeral of Marat. For the 
perfection of topographical drawing look at the series 
by F. Hoffbauer. But it is impossible and needless 
to particularise. The visitor with a topographical or 
historical bent will find himself in a paradise and will 
return and return. One visit is ridiculous. 

The catalogue, I may say, is not good, therein falling 
into line with the sculpture catalogue at the Louvre. 
Everything may be in it, but the arrangement is poor. 
In such a museum every article and every picture should 
of course have a description attached, if only for the 
benefit of the poor visitor, the humblest citizen of Paris 
whose museum it is. 

There are a few works of art here too, as well as 
topographical drawings. Georges Michel, for example, 
who looked on landscape much as Meryon looked on 
architecture and preferred a threatening sky to a sunny 
one, has a prospect from the Plaine St. Denis. Vollon 
paints the Moulin de la Galette on Montmartre as it 
was in 1865 ; Troyon spreads out St. Cloud. Here 
also are a charming portrait by Chardin of his second 
wife; the well-known picture of David's Life School; 
drawings by Watteau ; an adorable unsigned " Mar- 
chand de Lingerie " ; an enchanting leg on a blue 
pillow by Boucher; a portrait by Prud'hon of an un- 




PORTRAIT DE JEUNE HOMME 

ATTRIBUTED TO BIGIO 

{Louvre) 



LATUDE 71 

known man, very striking ; and some exquisite work by 
Louis Boilly. 

The Musee is strong in Henri IV. and the later Louis', 
but it is of course in rehcs of the Revolution and 
Napoleon that the interest centres. A casquette of 
Liberty; the handle of Marat's bathroom; a portrait 
of " La Veuve Capet " in the Conciergerie, in the room 
that we have seen; a painted life-mask of Voltaire, 
very horrible, and the armchair in which he died; a 
copy of the constitution of 1793 bound in the skin 
of a man; Marat's snuff-box; Madame Roland as 
a sweet and happy child, — these I remember in par- 
ticular. 

Latude is, however, the popular figure — Latude the 
prisoner of the Bastille who escaped by means of imple- 
ments which he made secretly and which are now 
preserved here, near a portrait of the enfranchised 
gentleman, robust, portly and triumphant, pointing 
with one hand to his late prison while the other grasps 
the rope ladder. Latude's history is an odd one. He 
was born in 1725, the natural son of a poor girl : after 
accompanying the army in Languedoc as a surgeon, or 
surgeon's assistant, he reached Paris in 1748 and pro- 
ceeded to starve. In despair he hit upon an ingenious 
trick, which wanted nothing but success to have made 
him. He prepared an infernal machine of infinitesimal 
aptitude — a contrivance of practically harmless but 
perhaps somewhat alarming explosives — and this he 
sent anonymously to the Marquise de Pompadour, and 



n A WANDERER IN PARIS 

then immediately after waited upon her in person at Ver- 
sailles to say that he had overheard some men plotting 
to destroy her by means of this kind of a bomb, and he 
had come post-haste to warn her and save her life. It 
was a good story, but Latude seems to have lacked some 
necessary gifts as an impostor, for his own share was 
detected and he was thrown into the Bastille on the 1st 
of May, 1749. A few weeks later he was transferred to 
the prison at Vincennes, from which he escaped in 1750. 
A month later he was retaken and again placed in the 
Bastille, from which he escaped six years later. He got 
away to Holland, but was quickly recaptured; and 
then again he escaped, after nine more years. He was 
then treated as a lunatic and put into confinement at 
Charenton, but was discharged in 1777. His liberty, 
however, seems to have been of little use to him, and 
he rapidly qualified for gaol again by breaking into a 
house and threatening its owner, a woman, with a 
pistol, and he was imprisoned once more. Altogether 
he was under lock and key for the greater part of 
thirty-five years ; but once he was free in 1784 he kept 
his head, and not only remained free but became a 
popular hero, and did not a little, by reason of a 
heightened account of his sufferings under despotic 
prison rule, to inflame the revolutionaries. These 
memoirs, by the way, in the preparation of which he 
was assisted by an advocate named Thiery, were for the 
most part untruthful, and not least so in those passages 
in which Latude described his own innocence and ideals. 



"A GREAT LADY" 73 

Our own canonised prison-breaker, Jack Sheppard, was 
a better h6ro than this man. 

The Httle room devoted to Napoleon is filled with an 
intimate melancholy. Many personal relics are here 
— even to a toothbrush dipped in a red powder. His 
necessaires de campagne so compactly arranged illustrate 
the minute orderliness of his mind, and the workmanship 
of the travelling cases that hold them proves once again 
his thoroughness and taste. Everything had to be 
right. One of his maps of la campagne de Prusse 
is here ; others we shall see as the Invalides. 

The relics of Madame de Sevigne, who once lived in 
this beautiful house, are not very numerous; but they 
exercise their spell. Her salon is very much as she left 
it, except that the private staircase has disappeared and 
a china closet takes its place. Within these walls have 
La Rochefoucauld and Bossuet conversed ; here she sat, 
pen in hand, writing her immortal letters. "Lisons 
tout Madame de Sevigne" was the advice of Sainte 
Beuve, while her most illustrious English admirer, 
Edward FitzGerald, often quotes her. He came to her 
late, not till 1875, but she never loosened her hold. " I 
have this Summer," he wrote to Mrs. W. H. Thompson, 
"made the Acquaintance of a great Lady, with whom 
I have become perfectly intimate, through her Letters, 
Madame de Sevigne. I had hitherto kept aloof from 
her, because of that eternal Daughter of hers ; but ' it's 
all Truth and Daylight,' as Kitty Clive said of Mrs. 
Siddons. Her Letters from Brittany are best of all, not 



74 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

those from Paris, for she loved the Country, dear 
Creature ; and now I want to go and visit her ' Rochers,' 
but never shall." "I sometimes lament," he says (to 
Mrs. Cowell), " I did not know her before ; but perhaps 
such an acquaintance comes in best to cheer one toward 
the end." With these pleasant praises in our ears let 
us leave the Carnavalet. 

The Rue de Sevigne itself has many interesting houses, 
notably on the south side of the Rue des Francs Bour- 
geois; No. 11, for example, was once a theatre, built by 
Beaumarchais in 1790. That is nothing; the interest- 
ing thing is that he built it of material from the de- 
stroyed Bastille and the destroyed church of St. Paul. 
The fire station close by was once the Hotel de Perron 
de Quincy. It was in this street, on the day of the Fete 
Dieu in 1392, that the Constable de Clisson, whose house 
we saw in the Rue des Archives, was attacked by Pierre 
de Craon. 

The Rue des Francs Bourgeois is the highway of the 
Marais, and the Carnavalet is its greatest possession; 
but, as I have said, the Marais is inexhaustible in archi- 
tectural and historical riches. We may work our way 
through it, back to the Rue du Temple by any of these 
ancient streets; all will repay. The Rue du Temple 
extends to the Rue de Rivoli, striking it just by the 
Hotel de Ville, but the lower portion, south of the Rue 
Rambuteau, is not so interesting as the upper. There 
is, however, to the west of it, just north of the Rue de 
Rivoli, a system of old streets hardly less picturesque 



'\" 




, • &.i..»i:s«a,.'. ;« 



THE ARC DE TRIOiMPHE DE L'ETOILE 

(approaching from the avenue DU BOIS DE BOULOGNE) 



ST. MERRY 75 

(and sometimes even more so) than the Marais proper, 
in the centre of which is the church of St. Merry, with 
one of the most wonderful west fronts anywhere — a 
mass of rich and eccentric decoration. The Saint him- 
self was Abbot of Autun. He came to Paris in the 
seventh century to visit the shrines of St. Denis and St. 
Germain. At that time the district which we are now 
traversing was chiefly forest, in which the kings of 
France would hunt, leaving their palace in the He de la 
Cite and crossing the river to this wild district — wild 
though so near. St. Merry established himself in his 
simple way near a little chapel in the woods, dedicated 
to St. Peter, that stood on this spot, and there he died. 
After his death his tomb in the chapel performed such 
miracles that St. Peter was forgotten and St. Merry was 
exalted, and when the time came to rebuild, St. Merry 
ousted St. Peter altogether. 

St. Merry's florid west front is in the Rue St. Martin, 
once the Roman road from Paris to the north and to 
England, and by the Rue St. Martin we may leave this 
district; but between it and the Rue du Temple there 
is much to see — such as, for example, the Rue Verrerie, 
south of St. Merry's, the head-quarters of the ancient 
glassworkers ; the Rue Brisemiche, quite one of the best 
of the old narrow Paris streets, with iron staples and 
hooks still in the walls at Nos. 20, 23, 26 and 29, to 
which chains could be fastened so as to turn a street into 
an impasse during times of stress and thus be sure of 
your man ; the Rue Taillepin, also leading out of the Rue 



76 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

du Cloitre St. Merry into the Rue St. Merry, which has 
some fine old houses of its own, notably No. 36 and the 
quaint Impasse du Boeuf at No. 10. 

Parallel with the Rue St. Merry farther north is 
the Rue de Venise, which the Vicomte de Villebresme 
boldly calls the most picturesque in old Paris. Now a 
very low quarter, it was once literally the Lombard 
Street of Paris, the chief abode of Lombardy money- 
lenders, while the long and beautiful Rue Quincampoix, 
into which it runs on the west, was also a financial 
centre, containing no less an establishment than the 
famous Banque of John Law, the Scotchman who for 
a while early in the eighteenth century controlled French 
finance. When Law had matured his Mississippi 
scheme, he made the Rue Quincampoix his head- 
quarters, and houses in it, we read, that had been let for 
£40 a year now yielded £800 a month. In the winter of 
1719-20 Paris was filled with speculators besieging Law's 
ofiices for shares. But by May the crash had come and 
Law had to fly. Many a house in the Rue Quincampoix, 
which is now sufficiently innocent of high finance, dates 
from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. There is a 
fine doorway at No. 34. 

We may regain the Rue St. Martin, just to the east, 
by the Rue des Lombards, which brings us to the flam- 
boyant front of St. Merry's once more. The Rue St. 
Martin, which confesses its Roman origin in its straight- 
ness, is still busy with traffic, but neither itself nor the 
Rue St. Denis, two or three hundred yards to the west, 



NEW STREETS FOR OLD 77 

is one-tenth as busy as it was before the Boulevard 
Sebastopol was cut between them to do all the real work. 
It is a fine thoroughfare and no doubt of the highest 
use, but what beautiful narrow streets of old houses it 
must have destroyed ! We may note in the Rue St. 
Martin the pretty fountain at No. 122, and the curious 
old house at No. 164, and leave it at the church of St. 
Nicholas-des-Champs, no longer in the fields any more 
than London's St. Martin's is. 

And now after so many houses let us see some 
pictures ! 



CHAPTER VI 

THE louvre: I. THE OLD MASTERS 

The Winged Victory of Samothrace — Botticelli's Fresco — Luini — 
Ingres — The Salon Carre — La Joconde — Leonardo da Vinci — 
Pater, Lowell and Vasari — Early Collectors — Paul Veronese — 
Copyists — The Salle des Primitifs — The Grand Galerie — 
Landor's Pictorial Creed — The Great Schools — Rembrandt — 
Van Dyck and Rubens — Amazing Abundance — The Dutch 
Masters — The Drawings. 

IT is on the first landing of the Escaher Daru, at the 
end of the Galerie Denon, that one of the most 
priceless treasures of the Louvre — one of the most 
splendid things in the world — is to be found : it has 
been before us all the way along the Galerie Denon, 
that avenue of noble bronzes, the first thing that caught 
the eye: I mean the "Winged Victory of Samothrace." 
Every one has seen photographs or models of this 
majestic and exquisite figure, but it must be studied 
here if one is to form a true estimate of the magical 
mastery of the sculptor. The Victory is headless and 
armless and much mutilated; but that matters little. 
She stands on the prow of the trireme, and for everyone 
who sees her with any imagination must for all time 
be the symbol of triumphant and splendid onset. The 

78 



BOTTICELLI 79 

figure no doubt weighs more than a ton — and is as light 
as air. The " Meteor " in a strong breeze with all her 
sails set and her prow foaming through the waves does 
not convey a more exciting idea of commanding and 
buoyant progress. But that comparison wholly omits 
the element of conquest — for this is essential Victory as 
well. 

The statue dates from the fourth century B.C. It 
was not discovered until 1863, in Samothrace. Paris is 
fortunate indeed to possess not only the Venus of Milo 
but this wonder of art — both in the same building. 

Before entering the picture galleries proper, let us 
look at two other exceedingly beautiful things also on 
this staircase — the two frescoes from the Villa Lemmi, 
but particularly No. 1297 on the left of the entrance 
to Gallery XVI., which represents Giovanna Tornabuoni 
and the Three Graces and is by Sandro Filipepi, whom 
we call Botticelli. For this exquisite work alone would 
I willingly cross the Channel even in a gale, such is its 
charm. A reproduction of it will be found opposite 
page 6, but it gives no impression of the soft delicacy 
of colouring: its gentle pinks and greens and purples, 
its kindly reds and chestnut browns. One should make 
a point of looking at these frescoes whenever one is on 
the staircase, which will be often. 

The ordinary entrance to the picture galleries of the 
Louvre is through the photographic vestibule on the 
right of the Winged Victory as you face it, leading to 
the Salle Duchatel, notable for such differing works as 



80 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

frescoes by Luini and two pictures by Ingres — repre- 
senting the beginning and end of his long and austere 
career. The Luinis are dehghtful — very gay and, as 
always with this tender master, sweet — especially " The 
Nativity," which is reproduced opposite page 16. The 
Ingres' (which were bequeathed by the Comtesse Ducha- 
tel after whom the room is named) are the " (Edipus solv- 
ing the riddle of the Sphinx," dated 1808, when the 
painter was twenty-eight, and the " Spring," which 
some consider his masterpiece, painted in 1856. He 
lived to be eighty-six. English people have so few 
opportunities of seeing the work of this master (we have 
in oils only a little doubtful portrait of Malibran, 
very recently acquired, which hangs in the National 
Gallery) that he comes as a totally new craftsman to 
most of us; and his severity may not always please. 
But as a draughtsman he almost takes the breath 
away, and no one should miss the pencil heads, par- 
ticularly a little saucy lady, from his hand in the His 
de la Salle collection of drawings in another part of the 
Louvre. 

In the Salle Duchatel is also a screen of drawings 
with a very beautiful head by Botticelli in it — No. 48. 
From the rooms we then pass to the Salon Carre (so 
called because it is square, and not, as I heard one 
American explaining to another, after the celebrated 
collector Carre who had left these pictures to the nation), 
and this is, I suppose, for its size, the most valuable 
gallery in the world. It is doubtful if any other com- 




THE WINGED VICTORY OF SAMOTHRACE 

{Louvre) 



LEONARDO 81 

bination of collections, each contributing of its choicest, 
could compile as remarkable a room, for the "Monna 
Lisa," or " La Joconde," Leonardo da Vinci's portrait of 
the wife of his friend Francesco del Giocondo, which is 
its greatest glory and perhaps the greatest glory of all 
Paris too, would necessarily be missing. 

Paris without this picture would not be the Paris 
that we know, or the Paris that has been since 1793 
when " La Joconde " first became the nation's property 
— ever more to smile her inscrutable smile and exert her 
quiet mysterious sway, not only for kings and courtiers 
but for all. When all is said, it is Leonardo who gives 
the Louvre its special distinction as a picture gallery. 
Without him it would still be magnificent: with him 
it is priceless and sublime. For not only are there the 
" Monna Lisa " and (also in the Salon Carre) the sweet 
and beautiful "Madonna and Saint Anne," but in the 
next, the Grande Galerie, are his " Virgin of the Rocks," 
a variant of the only Leonardo in our National Gallery, 
and the " Bacchus " (so like the " John the Baptist ") and 
the " John the Baptist " ( so like the " Bacchus ") and the 
portrait of the demure yet mischievous Italian lady who 
is supposed to be Lucrezia Crivelli and who (in spite of 
the yellowing ravages of time) once seen is never for- 
gotten. 

The Louvre has all these (together with many 
drawings), but above all it has the Monna Lisa, of which 
what shall I say ? I feel that I can say nothing. But 
here are two descriptions of the picture, or rather two 

G 



82 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

descriptions of the emotions produced by the picture 
on two very different minds. These I may quote as 
expressing, between them, all. I will begin with that 
of Walter Pater : " As we have seen him using incidents 
of sacred story, not for their own sake, or as mere sub- 
jects for pictorial realisation, but as a cryptic language 
for fancies all his own, so now he found a vent for his 
thought in taking one of these languid women, and rais- 
ing her, as Leda or Pomona, as Modesty or Vanity, to 
the seventh heaven of symbolical expression. 

"La Gioconda is, in the truest sense, Leonardo's 
masterpiece, the revealing instance of his mode of 
thought and work. In suggestiveness, only the Melan- 
cholia of Diirer is comparable to it; and no crude 
symbolism disturbs the effect of its subdued and grace- 
ful mystery. We all know the face and hands of the 
figure, set in its marble chair, in that circle of fantastic 
rocks, as in some faint light under sea. Perhaps of all 
ancient pictures time has chilled it least. ^ As often 
happens with works in which invention seems to reach 
its limit, there is an element in it given to, not invented 
by, the master. In that inestimable folio of drawings, 
once in the possession of Vasari, were certain designs by 
Verrocchio, faces of such impressive beauty that Leo- 
nardo in his boyhood copied them many times. It is 
hard not to connect with these designs of the elder, by- 
past master, as with its germinal principle, the unfathom- 

^ Yet for Vasari there was further magic of crimson in the lips and 
cheeks, lost for us, Paier's note. 



A PAGE OF PATER 83 

able smile, always with a touch of something sinister on 
it, which plays over all Leonardo's work. Besides, the 
picture is a portrait. From childhood we see this image 
defining itself on the fabric of his dreams ; and but for 
express historical testimony, we might fancy that this 
was but his ideal lady, embodied and beheld at last. 
What was the relationship of a living Florentine to this 
creature of his thought.'^ By what strange affinities 
had the dream and the person grown up thus apart, 
and yet so closely together .? Present from the first 
incorporeally in Leonardo's brain, dimly traced in the 
designs of Verrocchio, she is found present at last in II 
Giocondo's house. That there is much of mere por- 
traiture in the picture is attested by the legend that 
by artificial means, the presence of mimes and flute- 
players, that subtle expression was protracted on the 
face. Again, was it in four years and by renewed labour 
never really completed, or in four months and as by 
stroke of magic, that the image was projected ? 

" The presence that rose thus so strangely beside the 
waters, is expressive of what in the ways of a thousand 
years men had come to desire. Hers is the head upon 
which all 'the ends of the world are come,' and the 
eyelids are a little weary. It is a beauty wrought out 
from within upon the flesh, the deposit, little cell by 
cell, of strange thoughts and fantastic reveries and ex- 
quisite passions. Set it for a moment beside one of 
those white Greek Goddesses or beautiful women of 
antiquity, and how would they be troubled by this 



84 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

beauty, into which the soul with all its maladies has 
passed ! All the thoughts and experience of the world 
have etched and moulded there, in that which they have 
of power to refine and make expressive the outward 
form, the animalism of Greece, the lust of Rome, the 
mysticism of the middle age with its spiritual ambition 
and imaginative loves, the return of the Pagan world, 
the sins of the Borgias. She is older than the rocks 
among which she sits; like the vampire, she has been 
dead many times, and learned the secrets of the grave ; 
and has been a diver in deep seas, and keeps their fallen 
day about her; and trafficked for strange webs with 
Eastern merchants; and, as Leda, was the mother of 
Helen of Troy, and, as Saint Anne, the mother of Mary ; 
and all this has been to her but as the sound of lyres 
and flutes, and lives only in the delicacy with which it 
has moulded the hanging lineaments, and tinged the 
eyelids and the hands. The fancy of a perpetual life, 
sweeping together ten thousand experiences, is an old 
one; and modern philosophy has conceived the idea 
of humanity as wrought upon by, and summing up in 
itself all modes of thought and life. Certainly Lady 
Lisa might stand as the embodiment of the old fancy, 
the symbol of the modern idea." 

This was what the picture meant for Pater ; whether 
too much, is beside the mark. Pater thought it and 
Pater wrote it, and that is enough. To others, who 
are not as Pater, it says less, and possibly more. This, 
for example, is what "Monna Lisa" suggested to one 



"MONNA LISA" 85 

of the most distinguished and civilised minds of our 

time — James Russell Lowell : — 

She gave me all that woman can, 
Nor her soul's nunnery forego, 
A confidence that man to man 
Without remorse can never show. 

Rare art, that can the sense refine 
Till not a pulse rebellious stirs. 
And, since she never can be mine, 
Makes it seem sweeter to be hers ! 

Finally, since we cannot (I believe) spend too much 
time upon this picture, let me quote Vasari's account of 
it. " For Francesco del Giocondo, Leonardo undertook 
to paint the portrait of Monna Lisa, his wife, but, after 
loitering over it for four years, he finally left it un- 
finished. This work is now in the possession of the 
King Francis of France, and is at Fontainebleau. 
Whoever shall desire to see how far art can imitate 
nature may do so to perfection in this head, wherein 
every peculiarity that could be depicted by the utmost 
subtlety of the pencil has been faithfully reproduced. 
The eyes have the lustrous brightness and moisture 
which is seen in life, and around them are those pale, 
red, and slightly livid circles, also proper to nature, 
with the lashes, which can only be copied, as these are, 
with the greatest difiiculty ; the eyebrows also are rep- 
resented with the closest exactitude, where fuller and 
where more thinly set, with the separate hairs delineated 
as they issue from the skin, every turn being followed, 
and all the pores exhibited in a manner that could not 



86 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

be more natural than it is : the nose, with its beautiful 
and delicately roseate nostrils, might be easily believed 
to be alive ; the mouth, admirable in its outline, has the 
lips uniting the rose-tints of their colour with that of 
the face, in the utmost perfection, and the carnation of 
the cheek does not appear to be painted, but truly of 
flesh and blood; he who looks earnestly at the pit of 
the throat cannot but believe that he sees the beating 
of the pulses, and it may be truly said that this work is 
painted in a manner well calculated to make the boldest 
master tremble, and astonishes all who behold it, how- 
ever well accustomed to the marvels of art. 

"Monna Lisa was exceedingly beautiful, and while 
Leonardo was painting her portrait, he took the pre- 
caution of keeping someone constantly near her, to sing 
or play on instruments, or to jest and otherwise amuse 
her, to the end that she might continue cheerful, and 
so that her face might not exhibit the melancholy ex- 
pression often imparted by painters to the likenesses 
they take. In this portrait of Leonardo's, on the con- 
trary, there is so pleasing an expression, and a smile 
so sweet, that while looking at it one thinks it rather 
divine than human, and it has ever been esteemed a 
wonderful work, since life itself could exhibit no other 
appearance. 

King Francis I. (who met our Henry VIII. on the 
Field of the Cloth of Gold) bought the picture of 
Monna Lisa from the artist for a sum of money equal 
now to ^20,000. It was on a visit to Francis that 




LA JOCONDE : MONNA LISA 

LEONARDO DA VINCI 
{Louvre) 



ROYAL COLLECTORS 87 

Leonardo died. " Monna Lisa " was the most valuable 
picture in the cabinet of Francis I. and was first hung 
there in 1545. It is very interesting to think that 
this work, the peculiar glory of the Gallery, should also 
be its nucleus, so to speak. The Venus of Milo and the 
Winged Victory, which I have grouped with " Monna 
Lisa" as its chief treasures, were not added until the 
last century. 

Among other pictures in the Louvre which date 
from the inception of a royal collection in the brain of 
Francis I. are the " Virgin of the Rocks " by Leonardo, 
Raphael's "Sainte Famille" (No. 1498) and "Saint 
Michael," Andrea del Sarto's " Charite " and Piombo's 
"Visitation." Louis XIII. began his reign with about 
fifty pictures and increased them to two hundred, while 
under Louis XIV., the Louvre's most conspicuous 
friend, the royal collection grew from these two hundred 
to two thousand — assisted greatly by Colbert the finan- 
cier, who bought for the Crown not only much of the 
collection of the banker Jabach of Cologne, the Pier- 
pont Morgan of his day, who had acquired the art 
treasures of our own Charles I., but also the Mazarin 
bibelots. Under Louis XIV. and succeeding monarchs 
the pictures oscillated between the Louvre, the Luxem- 
bourg and Versailles. The Revolution centralised them 
in the Louvre, and on 8th November, 1793, the collec- 
tion was made over to the public. During the first 
Republic one hundred thousand francs a year were set 
aside for the purchase of pictures. 



88 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

But we are in the Salon Carre. Close beside "La 
Joconde" is that Raphael which gives me personally 
more pleasure than any of his pictures — the portrait, 
beautiful in greys and blacks, of Count Baldassare 
Castiglione, reproduced opposite page 52; here is a 
Correggio (No. 1117) bathed in a glory of light; here 
is a golden Giorgione; here is an allegory by Titian 
(No. 1589), not so miraculously coloured as the Cor- 
reggio but wonderfully rich and beautiful; here is a 
little princess by Velasquez; and near it a haunting 
portrait of a young man (No. 1644) which has been 
attributed to many hands, but rests now as the work of 
Francia Bigio. I reproduce it opposite page 70. And 
that is but a fraction of the treasures of the Salon Carre. 
For there are other Titians, notably the portrait (No. 
1592) of a young man with a glove (reproduced opposite 
page 64), marked by a beautiful gravity ; other Raphaels 
more characteristic, including "La Belle Jardiniere" 
(No. 1496), filled with a rich deep calm; the sweetest 
Luini that I remember (No. 1354), and the immense 
"Marriage at Cana" by Paolo Veronese, which when 
I saw it recently was being laboriously engraved on 
copper by a gentleman in the middle of the room. It 
was odd to watch so careful a piece of translation in 
the actual making — to see Veronese's vast scene with 
its rich colouring and tremendous energy coming down 
into spider-like scratches on two square feet of hard 
metal. I did not know that such patience was any 
longer exercised. This picture, by the way, has a double 



ABANDONED COPIES 89 

interest — the general and the particular. As Whistler 
said of S\Vitzerland, you may both admire the mountain 
and recognise the tourist on the top. It is full of 
portraits. The bride at the end of the table is Eleanor 
of Austria ; at her side is Francis I. (who found his 
way into as many pictures as most men) ; next to him, 
in yellow, is Mary of England. The Sultan Suliman I. 
and the Emperor Charles V. are not absent. The 
musicians are the artist and his friends — Paul himself 
playing the 'cello, Tintoretto the piccolo, Titian the 
bass viol, and Bassano the flute. The lady with a 
toothpick is (alas !) Vittoria Colonna. 

It is, by the way, always student-day at the Louvre 
— at least I never remember to have been there, except 
on Sundays, when copyists were not at work. Many of 
the copies are being made to order as altar pieces in 
new churches and for other definite purposes. Not all, 
however ! A newspaper paragraph lying before me 
states that the authorities of the Louvre have five 
hundred unfinished copies on their hands, abandoned by 
their authors so thoroughly as never to be inquired for 
again. I am not surprised. 

From the Salle Carre we enter the Grande Galerie, 
which begins with the Florentine School, and ends, a 
vast distance away, with Rembrandt. But first it is 
well to turn into the little Salle des Primitifs Italiens, 
a few steps on the right, for here are very rare and 
beautiful things: Botticelli's "Madonna with a child 
and John the Baptist" (No. 1296); Domenico Ghu-- 



90 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

landaio's "Portrait of an old man and a boy" (No. 
1322), which I reproduce opposite page 136, that 
triumph of early realism, and his "Visitation" (No. 
1321), with its joyful colouring, culminating in a glori- 
ous orange gown ; Benedetto Ghirlandaio's " Christ on 
the way to Golgotha" (No. 1323, on the opposite wall), 
a fine hard red picture ; two little Piero de Cosimos (on 
each side of the door), very mellow and gay — represent- 
ing scenes in the marriage of Thetes and Peleus; Era 
Eilippo Lippi's " Madonna and Child with two sainted 
abbots" (No. 1344), and the "Nativity" next it (No. 
1343); a sweet and lovely "Virgin and Child" (No. 
1345) of the Era Eilippo Lippi school; another, also 
very beautiful, by Mainardi (No. 1367) ; a canvas of por- 
traits, including Giotto and the painter himself, by Paolo 
Uccello (No. 1272), the very picture described by Vasari 
in the Lives; and Giotto's scenes in the life of St. 
Francis, in the frame of which, as we shall see, I once, 
for historical comparison, slipped the photograph of M. 
Henri Pol, charmeur des oiseaux. These I name; but 
much remains that will appeal even more to others. 

To walk along the Grande Galerie is practically to 
traverse the history of art : Italian, Spanish, British, 
German, Flemish and Dutch paintings all hang here. 
Nothing is missing but the French, which, however, are 
very near at hand. Some lines of Land or which always 
come to my mind in a picture gallery I may quote 
hereabouts with peculiar fitness, and also with a desire 
to transfer the haunting — a very good one even if one 



LANDOR'S CREED 91 

does not agree with the reference to Rembrandt, which 
I do not : -^- 

First bring me Raphael, who alone hath seen 

In all her purity Heaven's Virgin Queen, 

Alone hath felt true beauty; bring me then 

Titian, ennobler of the noblest men; 

And next the sweet Correggio, nor chastise 

His little Cupids for those wicked eyes. 

I want not Rubens's pink puffy bloom, 

Nor Rembrandt's glimmer in a dirty room 

With these, nor Poussin's nymph-frequented woods. 

His templed heights and long-drawn solitudes. 

I am content, yet fain would look abroad 

On one warm sunset of Ausonian Claude. 

It is no province of this book to take the place of 
a catalogue ; but I must mention a few pictures. The 
left wall is throughout, I may say, except in the case 
of the British pictures, the better. Here, very early, 
is the lovely " Holy Family " of Andrea del Sarto (No. 
1515); here hang the four Leonardos which I have 
mentioned and certain of his derivatives; a beautiful 
Andrea Solario (No. 1530) ; a Lotto, very modern in 
feeling (No. 1350) ; a very striking " Salome" by Luini 
(1355), and the same painter's "Holy Family" (No. 
1353) ; Mantegna ; a fine Palma ; Bellini ; Antonello 
de Messina; more Titians, including "The Madonna 
with the rabbit " (No. 1578) and " Jupiter and Antiope " 
(No. 1587) ; a new portrait of a man in armour by 
Tintoretto, lately lent to the Louvre, one of his gravest 
and greatest ; and so on to the sweet Umbrians — to 
Perugino and to Raphael, among whose pictures are two 



92 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

or three examples of his gay romantic manner, the most 
pleasing of which (No. 1509), " Apollo and Marsyas," is 
only conjecturally attributed to him. 

We pass then to Spain — to Murillo, who is repre- 
sented here both in his rapturous saccharine and his real- 
istic moods, "La Naissance de la Vierge" (No. 1710) 
and "Le Jeune Mendicant" (No. 1717) ; to Velasquez, 
who, however, is no longer credited with the lively sketch 
of Spanish gentlemen (No. 1734) ; and to Zurbaran, the 
strong and merciless. 

The British pictures are few but choice, including a 
very fine Raeburn, and landscapes by Constable and 
Bonington, two painters whom the French elevated to 
the rank of master and influence while we were still de- 
bating their merits. Such a landscape as " Le Cottage " 
(No. 1806) by Constable, with its rich English simplicity, 
brings one up with a kind of start in the midst of so 
much grandiosity and pomp. It is out of place here, 
and yet one is very happy to see it. From Britain we 
pass to the Flemish and Germans — to perfect Holbeins, 
including an Erasmus and Diirer ; to Rubens, who, how- 
ever, comes later in his full force, and to the gross and 
juicy Jordaens. 

Then sublimity again ; for here is Rembrandt of the 
Rhine. After Leonardo, Rembrandt is to me the glory 
of the Louvre, and especially the glory of the Grande 
Galerie, the last section of which is now hung with 
twenty-two of his works. Not one of them is perhaps 
superlative Rembrandt; there is nothing quite so fine 



REMBRANDT AND RUBENS 93 

as the portrait of Elizabeth Bas at the Ryks, or the 
" School of Anatomy " at the Mauritshuis, or the " Un- 
just Steward " at Hertford House ; but how wonderful 
they are ! Look at the miracle of the flying angel in 
the picture of Tobias — how real it is and how light ! 
Look closely at the two little pictures of the philosopher 
in meditation. I have chosen the beautiful "Venus et 
L'Amour" and the "Pelerins d'Emmaus" for repro- 
duction ; but I might equally have taken others. They 
will be found opposite 146 and 154. 

On the other wall are a few pictures by Rembrandt's 
pupils and colleagues, such as Ferdinand Bol and Govaert 
Flinck, who were always on the track of the master; 
and more particularly Gerard Dou : note the old woman 
in his "Lecture de la Bible," for it is Rembrandt's 
mother, and also look carefully at " La Femme Hydro- 
pique," one of his most miraculously finished works — a 
Rembrandt through the small end of a telescope. 

From these we pass to the sumptuous Salle Van Dyck, 
which in its turn leads to the Salle Rubens, and one is 
again filled with wonder at the productivity of the twain 
— pupil and master. Did he never tire, this Peter Paul 
Rubens .? Did a new canvas never deter or abash him ? 
It seems not. No sooner was it set up in his studio than 
at it he must have gone like a charge of cavalry, magni- 
ficent in his courage, in his skill and in his brio. What 
a record ! Has Rubens' square mileage ever been 
worked out, I wonder. He was very like a Frenchman : 
it is the vigour and spirit of Dumas at work with the 



^' r 



94 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

brush. In the Louvre there are fifty-four attested works, 
besides raanj drawings ; and it seems to me that I must 
have seen as many in Vienna, and as many in Dresden, 
and as many in Berhn, and as many in Antwerp, and 
as many in Brussels, to say nothing of the glorious land- 
scape in Trafalgar Square. He is always overpowering ; 
but for me the quieter, gentler brushes. None the less 
the portrait of Helene Fourment and their two children, 
in the Grande Galerie, although far from approaching 
that exquisite picture in the Lichtenstein Gallery in 
Vienna, when the boys were a little older, is a beautiful 
and living thing which one would not willingly miss. 

Van Dyck was, of course, more austere, less boisterous 
and abundant, but his record is hardly less amazing, 
and he seems to have faced life-size equestrian groups, 
such as the Charles the First here, without a tremor. 
The Charles is superb in his distinction and disdain; 
but for me, however. Van Dyck is the painter of single 
portraits, of which, no matter where I go, none seems 
more noble and satisfying than our own Cornelius Van 
Voorst in Trafalgar Square. But the "Dame et sa 
Fille," which is reproduced on the opposite page, is 
very beautiful. 

All round the Salle Rubens are arranged the little 
cabinets in which the small Dutch pictures hang — the 
Jan Steens and the Terburgs, the Hals' and the Metsus, 
the Ruisdaels and the Karel du Jardins, the Ostades 
and the golden Poelenburghs. Of these what can I say ? 
There they are, in their hundreds, the least of them 




UNE DAME ET SA FILLE 

VAN DYCK 

(Louvre) 



THE WONDERFUL DUTCH 95 

worth many minutes' scrutiny. But a few may be 
picked out: the Jan van Eyck (No. 1986) "La Vierge 
au Donateur," reproduced opposite page 166, in which 
the Chancellor Rollin reveres the Virgin on the roof of a 
tower, and small wild animals happily play around, and 
we see in the distance one of those little fairy cities so 
dear to the Flemish painter's imagination; David's 
"Noce de Cana"; Metsu's "Vierge et Enfant"; the 
Memling and the Rogier van der Weyden, close by; 
Franz Hals' " Bohemienne," reproduced opposite page 
186 ; Van der Heyden's lovely " Plain de Harlem " (No. 
2382); Paul Potter's "Boisde LaHaye" (No. 2529), 
almost like a Diaz, and his little masterpiece No. 2526 ; 
the Terburgs : the " Music Lesson " (No. 2588) and the 
charming "Reading Lesson" (No. 2591) with the little 
touzled fair-haired boy in it, reproduced opposite page 
206 ; Ruisdael's " Paysage dit le Coup de Soleil " (No. 
2560) ; Hobbema's " Moulin a eau " (No. 2404) ; and, 
to my eyes, almost first of all, Vermeer of Delft's " Lace- 
maker" (No. 2587), reproduced opposite page 216. 
These are all I name. 

So much for the paintings by the masters of the 
world. The Louvre also has drawings from the same 
hands, which hang in their thousands in a series of 
rooms on the first floor, overlooking the Rue de Rivoli. 
Here, as I have said, are other Leonardos (look particu- 
larly at No. 389), and here, too, are drawings by Raphael 
and Rembrandt, Correggio and Rubens (a child's head 
in particular), Domenico Ghirlandaio and Chardin, 



96 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

Mantegna and Watteau, Diirer and Ingres. I re- 
produce only one, a study attributed to the school of 
Fabriano, opposite page 228. Here one may spend 
a month in daily visits and wish never to break the 
habit. We have in England hardly less valuable and 
interesting drawings, but they are not to be seen in this 
way. One must visit the Print Room of the British 
Museum and ask for them one by one in portfolios. 
The Louvre, I think, manages it better. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE louvre: II. MODERN PICTURES AND OTHER 
TREASURES 

The Early French Painters — Richard Parkes Bonington — Chardin 
— Historical Paintings — Bonington again — The Moreau Collec- 
tion — The Thomy-Thierret Collection — A Bad Catalogue — The 
Venus of Milo — Beautiful Backs — Modern Sculpture — Exqui- 
site Terra-cottas — The necessity of Seeing the Louvre every day — 
Historical Associations — Petty Restitutions. 

FRENCH pictures early and late now await us. On 
our way down the Grand Galerie we passed on 
the right two entrances to other rooms. Taking that 
one which is nearer the British School, we find ourselves 
in Salle IX., leading to Salle X. and so on to Galerie 
XVI., which completes the series. In Salle X. the 
beginnings of French art may be studied, and in 
particular the curious Japanese effects of the Ecole 
d'Avignon. Here also is very interesting work by Le 
Maitre de Moulins and a remarkable series of drawings 
in the case in the middle, representing the siege of Troy. 
Salle XI. is notable for its portraits by Clouet and 
others ; in Salle XII. we find Le Sueur, and in Salle XIII. 
the curious brothers Le Nain, of whom there are very 
interesting examples at the lonides collection at South 
H 97 



98 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

Kensington, but nothing better than the haymaking 
scene here, No. 542. 

French painting of the seventeenth century bursts 
upon us in the great Salle XIV. or Galerie Mollien, 
of which Nicolas Poussin and Ausonian Claude are 
the giants, thus completing Landor's pleasant list with 
which we entered the Grand Galerie in the last chapter. 
There are wonderful things here, but so crowded are 
they that I always feel lost and confused. There is, 
however, compensation and relief, for the room also 
contains one minute masterpiece which perhaps not 
more than five out of every thousand visitors have seen 
and yet which can be studied with perfect quietness 
and leisure. This is a tiny water-colour in the revolving 
screen in the middle. There is much delicate work in 
this screen, dainty aquatint effects by the Dutchmen 
Ostade and Van de Heyden, Weenix and Borssom, and 
so forth; but finest of all (as so often happens) is a 
little richly-coloured drawing of Nottingham by Boning- 
ton, who as we shall see, has a way of cropping up 
unsuspectedly and graciously in this great collection 
— and very rightly, since he owed so much to that 
Gallery. He was one of the youngest students ever 
admitted, being allowed to copy there at the age of 
fifteen, while at the Beaux Arts. That was in the year 
after Waterloo. There may in the history of the Gal- 
lery have been copyists equally young, but there can 
never have been one more distinguished or who had 
deeper influence on French art. Paris not only made 



"SERENELY ARRIVING" 99 

Bonington's career but ended it, for it was while sketch- 
ing in its streets ten years or more later that he met 
with the sunstroke which brought about his death 
when he was only twenty-seven, and stilled the marvel- 
lous hand for ever. 

Salle XV. is given up to portraits, among them — and 
shall I say chief of them, certainly chief of them in 
point of popularity — the adorable portrait of Madame 
Elizabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun and her daughter, 
painted by herself, which is perhaps the best-known 
French picture, and of which I give a reproduction 
opposite page 246. On a screen in this room are placed 
the latest acquisitions. When last I was there the more 
noticeable pictures were a portrait by Romney of him- 
self, rich and melancholy, recalling to the mind Tenny- 
son's monologue, and a sweet and ancient religieuse by 
Memling. There were also some Corot drawings, not 
perhaps so good as those in the Moreau collection, but 
very beautiful, and a charming old-world lady by Fra- 
gonard. These probably are by this time distributed 
over the galleries, and other new arrivals have taken 
their place. I hope so. 

Galerie XVI., which leads out of the Salle de Por- 
traits, brings us to French art of the eighteenth century 
— to Greuze and David, to Fragonard and Watteau, 
to Lancret and Boucher, and, to my mind, most charm- 
ing, most pleasure-giving of all, to Jean Baptiste Simeon 
Chardin, who is to be seen in perfection here and in the 
distant room which contains the Collection La Caze. 



100 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

It is probable that no painter ever had quite so much 
charm as this kindly Frenchman, whose loving task it 
was to sweeten and refine homely Dutch art. Chardin 
is the most winsome of all painters: his brush laid a 
bloom on domestic life. The Louvre has twenty-eight 
of his canvases, mostly still-life, distributed between the 
Salle La Caze and Salle No. XVI., where we now are. 
The most charming of all, which is to be seen in the 
Salle La Caze, is reproduced opposite page 234. 

Having walked down the left wall of the Salle, it is 
well to slip out at the door at the end for a moment 
and refresh oneself with another view of Botticelli's 
fresco, which is just outside, before returning by the 
other wall, as we have to go back through the Salle des 
Portraits in order to examine Galerie VIII., a vast 
room wholly filled with French paintings of the first 
half of the nineteenth century, bringing the nation's 
art to the period more or less at which the Luxembourg 
takes it up, though there is a certain amount of over- 
lapping. No room in the Louvre so wants weeding 
and re-hanging as this, for it is a sad jumble, the hard 
studio brilliance of Ingres conflicting with the charm of 
Corot, the iron Manet with the gentle Millet, Dela- 
croix with Scheffer. There are pictures here which if 
they were only isolated would be unforgettable ; but as 
it is they are not even to be seen. 

We leave the room by the door opposite that through 
which we came and find ourselves again in the Grande 
Galerie. The way now is to the left, through the 



MANY MODERNS 101 

Italian Schools, through the Salle Carre (why not stay 
there and let French art go hang ?) through the 
Galerie d'ApolIon (of which more anon), through the 
Rotunda and the Salle des Bijoux (whither we shall 
return), to another crowded late eighteenth and early 
nineteenth century French room chiefly notable for 
David's Madame Recamier on her joyless little sofa. 
(Why didn't we stay in the Salon Carre?) In this 
room also are two large Napoleonic pictures — one by 
Gros representing General Buonaparte visiting the 
plague victims of Jaffa in 1799; the other, by David, 
of the consecration service in Notre Dame, described in 
an earlier chapter. To see this kind of picture, at 
which the French have for many years been extremely 
apt, one must of course go to Versailles, where the 
history of France is spread lavishly over many square 
miles of canvas. 

From this room — La Salle des Sept Cheminees — 
we pass through a little vestibule, with Courbet's great 
village funeral in it, to the very pleasant Salle La Caze, 
containing the greater part of the collection of the late 
Dr. La Caze, and notable chiefly for the Chardins of 
which I have already spoken, and also, by the further 
door, for a haunting "Bust de femme" attributed to 
the Milanese School. But there are other admirable 
pictures here, including a Velasquez, and it repays 
study. 

Leaving by the further door and walking for some 
distance, we come to the His de la Salle collection of 



102 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

drawings, from which we gain the Collection Thiers, 
which should perhaps be referred to here, although there 
is not the slightest necessity to see it at all. The 
Thiers collection, which occupies two rooms, is remark- 
able chiefly for its water-colour copies of great paint- 
ings. The first President of the Republic employed 
patient artists to make copies suitable for hanging 
upon his walls of such inaccessible works as the "Last 
Judgment" of Michael Angelo and Raphael's Dresden 
Madonna. The results are certainly extraordinary, 
even if they are not precisely la guerre. The Arundel 
Society perhaps found its inspiration in this collection. 
Among the originals there is a fine Terburg. 

On leaving the Thiers collection, one comes to a 
narrow passage with a little huddle of water-colours, 
very badly treated as to light and space, and well worth 
more consideration. These pictures should not be 
missed, for among them are two Boningtons, a windmill 
in a sombre landscape, which I reproduce opposite page 
274, and next to it a masterly drawing of the statue 
of Bartolomme Colleoni at Venice, which Ruskin called 
the finest equestrian group in the world. Bonington, 
who had the special gift of painting great pictures in 
small compass (just as there are men who can use a 
whole wall to paint a little picture on), has made a 
drawing in which the original sculptor would have 
rejoiced. It would do the Louvre authorities good if 
these Boningtons, which they treat so carelessly, were 
stolen. Nothing could be easier; I worked out the 



THE MOREAU COLLECTION 103 

felony as I stood there. All that one would need would 
be a few friends equally concerned to teach the Louvre 
a lesson, behind whose broad backs one could ply the 
diamond and the knife. Were I a company promoter 
this is how I should spend my leisure hours. Such 
theft is very nigh virtue. 

Among other pictures in these bad little rooms — 
Nos. XVII. and XVIII. — are some Millets and Decamps. 

Two more collections — and these really more inter- 
esting than anything we saw in Galeries XIV. or XVI., 
or the Salle des Sept Cheminees — await us ; but they 
need considerable powers of perambulation. Chrono- 
logy having got us under his thumb, we must make the 
longer journey first — to the Collection Moreau. The 
Collection Moreau is to be found at the top of the 
Musee des Arts Decoratifs, the entrance to which is in 
the Rue de Rivoli. In the lower part of this building 
are held periodical exhibitions ; but the upper parts are 
likely at any rate for a long time to remain unchanged, 
and here are wonderful collections of furniture, and here 
hang the few but select canvases brought together by 
Adolph Moreau and his son, and presented to the nation 
by M. Etienne Moreau-Nelaton. 

In the Thomy-Thierret collection in another top 
storey of the same inexliaustible palace (to which our 
fainting feet are bound) are Corots of the late period; 
M. Moreau bought the earlier. Here, among nearly 
forty others, you may see that portrait of Corot painted 
in 1825, just before he left for Rome, which his parents 



104 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

exacted from him in return for their consent to his new 
career and the abandonment of their rosy dreams of his 
success as a draper. Here you may see " Un Moine," 
one of the first pictures he was able to sell — for five 
hundred francs (twenty pounds). Here is the charming 
marine "La Rochelle" painted in 1851 and given by 
Corot to Desbarolles and by Desbarolles to the younger 
Dumas. Here is the very beautiful Ponte de Nantes, 
reproduced opposite page 252, belonging to his later 
manner, and here also is an exceptionally merry little 
sketch, " Bateau de peche a maree basse." I mention 
these only, since selection is necessary; but everything 
that Corot painted becomes in time satisfying to the 
student and indispensable to its owner. Among the 
pencil drawings we find this exquisite lover of nature 
once more, with fifteen studies of his Mistress. 

One of the most interesting of the Moreau pictures 
is Fantin-Latour's "Hommage a Delacroix," with its 
figures of certain of the great and more daring writers 
and painters of the day, 1864, the year after Delacroix's 
death. They are grouped about his framed portrait — 
Manet, red haired and red bearded, a little like Mr. 
Meredith in feature ; Whistler, with his white feather 
black and vigorous, and his hand on the historical cane ; 
Legros (the only member of the group who is still living, 
and long may he live !) and Baudelaire, for all the world 
like an innocent professor. Manet himself is repre- 
sented here by his famous " Dejeuner sur I'herbe," which 
the scandalised Salon of 1863 refused to hang, and three 



THOMY-THIERRET 105 

smaller canvases. Among the remaining pictures which 
gave me most pleasure are Couture's portrait of Adolphe 
Moreau the younger; Daumier's "La Republique"; 
Carriere's "L'enfant a la soupiere" (notice the white 
bowl) ; Decamps ' " La Battue," curiously like aKoninck ; 
and Troyon's " Le Passage du Gue," so rich and sweet. 
From the Collection Moreau, with its early Barbizon 
pictures, one ought to pass to the collection Thomy- 
Thierret; but it needs courage and endurance, for the 
room which contains these exquisite pictures is only to 
be reached on foot after climbing many stairs and walk- 
ing for what seem to be many miles among models of 
ships and other neglected curiosities on the Louvre's top- 
most floor. But once the room is reached one is per- 
fectly happy, for every picture is a gem and there is no 
one there. M. Thomy-Thierret, who died quite recently, 
was a collector who liked pictures to be small, to be rich 
in colour, and to be painted by the Barbizon and 
Romantic Schools. Here you may see twelve Corots, 
all of a much later period than those bequeathed by M. 
Moreau, among them such masterpieces as " La Vallon " 
(No. 2801), reproduced opposite the next page, "Le 
Chemin de Sevres" (No. 2803), "Entree de Village" (No. 
2808), "Les Chaumieres" (No. 2809), and "La Route 
d'Arras" (No. 2810). Here are thirteen Daubignys, in- 
cluding "Les Graves de Villerville" (No. 28,177), and 
one sombre and haunting English scene — " La Tamise 
a Erith" (No. 2821). Here are ten Diaz', most beau- 
tiful of which to my eyes is " L'Eploree " (No. 2863). 



106 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

Here are ten Rousseaus, among them " Le Printemps " 
(No. 2903), with its rapturous freshness, which I re- 
produce opposite page 116, and "Les Chenes" 
(No. 2900), such a group of trees as Rousseau alone 
could paint. Here are six Millets, my favourite be- 
ing the "Precaution Maternelle" (No. 2894), with its 
lovely blues, which again reappear in "Le Vanneur" 
(No. 2893). Here are eleven Troyons, of which "La 
Provende des poules" (No. 2907), with its bustle of tur- 
keys and chickens around the gay peasant girl beneath 
a burning sky, reproduced opposite page 266, is one of 
the first pictures to which my feet carry me on my visits 
to Paris. Here are twelve Dupres, most memorable of 
which is " Les Landes " (No. 2871). And here also are 
Delacroixs, Isabeys and Meissoniers. I suppose it is 
the best permanent collection of these masters. 

So much for the pictures. There remains an im- 
mense variety of beautiful and interesting objects to be 
seen : so immense that it is almost ridiculous to attempt 
to write of them in such a book as this. 

The sculpture alone . . . ! 

Let us at any rate walk through the sculpture gal- 
leries. To write about painting is sufficiently difficult 
and unsatisfactory; to write about sculpture is practi- 
cally impossible. Another obstacle is that the numbers 
in the official catalogue that is sold in the Louvre and 
the numbers on the statues do not correspond, so that 
one becomes as perplexed and irritated as the King and 
Queen in Andersen's story of " The Tinder Box " after 



THE VENUS OF MILO 107 

the dog with eyes as big as saucers had chalked the same 
figure on every house in the street. 

We in England see so little statuary and know so 
little about it, that the visits of the English traveller 
to the sculpture galleries of the Louvre, chiefly made in 
order that he may say that he has seen the Venus of 
Milo, are few and hurried. To most of us all sculpture 
is equally good and equally cold ; but anyone who has 
an eye for the beauty of form will find these rooms 
a paradise. We have isolated figures in the British 
Museum that stand apart, and we have of course the 
Elgin marbles, which are as fine as anything in the 
Louvre, nor is there anything there with quite such a 
quality of tender charm as our new figure of a mourning 
woman ; but when all is said the Louvre collection, as 
is only natural in a sculpture-loving nation, is vastly 
better than our own. The bronzes alone — in the 
Galerie Denon — leave us hopelessly behind. 

You see the Venus of Milo before you all the way 
along her corridor : she stands quietly and glimmeringly 
beckoning at the very end of it, alone, before her dark 
red background. Why the Venus of Milo is so radi- 
antly satisfying, so almost terribly beautiful, I cannot 
explain; but there it is. It is a cold beauty, but it is 
magical too ; it dominates, controls. And with it there 
is peace ; a dove broods somewhere near. The strangest 
thing of all is that one never misses the arms. It is as 
though the arms were a defect in a perfect woman. 
How they can have been disposed by the sculptor I 



108 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

used once languidly to speculate; but I am interested 
no more. Those, however, that are should remember 
to look at the neighbouring glass case, where portions 
of hands and arms, discovered with the Venus in the 
soil of Milo in 1820 (the world has known this wonder 
only eighty-nine years: Napoleon never saw her) are 
preserved. 

There is little room for me to enumerate the statues 
that should retard your steps to her; but the Borghese 
Mars is certainly one, in the midst of the rotunda, and I 
personally am attracted by the Silenus nursing Bacchus 
in the same room. In the Salle du Sarcophage de 
Medee there is a little torso of Amour on the left of 
Apollo, also with a beautiful back. In the Salle de 
I'Hermaphrodite de Velletri notice a draped figure lack- 
ing a head, close to the Hermaphrodite on the right. 

From the Venus of Milo one turns to the Giant Mel- 
pomene keeping guard majestically over the mosaic 
pavement below her, which at first sight one thinks to 
be very old, but which dates only from the time of 
Napoleon, whose genius is symbolised by Minerva. 
There are few more lovely shades of colour in the Louvre 
than are preserved in this floor. 

In the Salle des Caryatides, from which there is an 
exit into the courtyard of the old Louvre, there is a 
rugged Hercules, a boorish god with a club, that always 
fascinates me. The Hercules who carries Telephe, just 
at the entrance, though fine, is a far less attractive figure. 
Also notice the child with the goose, dug up in the 



BEAUTIFUL BACKS 109 

Appian Way in 1789 ; the towering Alexander the 
Great; the Jupiter de Versailles; the " Mercure at- 
tachant sa sandale " ; the " Bacchus couronne de pam- 
pes"; the "Discobulus au repos." I give no numbers 
for a reason explained above — a privation which I re- 
gret, since I cannot draw attention to two or three torsi 
with the most exquisite backs, one in one of the windows 
entitled "Amour avec les attributs d'Hercule." 

In the Salle des Heros Combattant note the mischiev- 
ous head of the " Jeune Satyre souriant," in the middle. 

In the Salle de la Pallas de Velletri, the " Genie du 
repos eternel," most feminine of youths, is alluring, and 
here are the Venus d'Arles and the Appollon Sauroctone 
after a bronze by Praxiteles. Note also the life and 
spirit of the " Centaure dompte par I'Amour," and there 
are beautiful torsi here, with fluid lines ; also a charming 
" Jeune homme casque, dit Mars." In the next room, 
the Salle du Tibre, are other examples of perfect 
modelling — in the two or three " Jeunes Satyres vetus 
de la nebride," which are here, and in one or two figures 
in the window diagonally opposite to the door; and 
look also at the two Venuses " accroupit " in the middle, 
with the remains of little hands on their backs. But 
the colossal statue of old Father Tiber with Romulus 
and Remus is the dominating group. 

I suspect that a census of the visitors to the modern 
sculpture in the Louvre would yield very low figures. 
This is not surprising for at least two reasons, one being 
that the sculpture displayed there is of poor quality, 



110 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

not made the less inferior by being adjacent to so much 
of the best sculpture in the world, and the other that 
it is so exceedingly difficult to find the way in. My 
advice to the reader is, Don't find it. If, however, you 
insist, you will have the opportunity of selecting suitable 
adjectives for the work of Coyzevox and Puget, Coustou 
and Pigalle (after whom is named the roystering Place 
Pigalle to which so many cabs and motors urge their 
giddy way in the small hours), Houdon (who could be 
rather charming) and Ramly (who couldn't) ; Jeraud 
and Rude, Chaudet and the vivid Carpeaux. Without 
the work of these men Paris would not be what it is, for 
we meet the creations of their mallet and chisel at every 
turn ; and yet I know of few spots so depressing as the 
galleries that enshrine their indoor work. Carpeaux 
for example designed the group called "La Danse" 
on the wall of the Opera. 

More charming by far is the Renaissance Sculpture 

— the Delia Robbias and Donatellos — in the Ren- 
aissance Galleries, also on the ground floor in the extreme 
South East Wing ; but these are often closed. 

In all the galleries of what may be called the secondary 
Louvre — the pictured and ancient sculpture coming first 

— nothing gives me so much pleasure as the wall paint- 
ings from Rome and Pompeii, of such exquisite deli- 
cacy of colour and now and then of design, and the 
terra-cotta figures, in the rooms above the Renais- 
sance Gallery : grotesque comedians, cheerful peasants, 
mothers and children as simple and sweet as Millet's, 



EMBARRASSMENT OF RICHES 111 

merry Cupids, hooded ladies, and in Room B. two 
winged figures (Nos. 86 and 88) that are Hghter than air. 
In Room L. look particularly at the statuette of a peda- 
gogue. In the Salle de Clarac, containing the collection 
of M. Clarac, look also very particularly at the little 
marble statue, broken but perfect too, of the crouching 
woman — No. 2631 — who ought to be on a revolving 
table, so lovely must her back be. 

I say nothing of the other famous collections of the 
Louvre — the Egyptian and Assyrian and Chaldean 
rooms, the furniture, the ceramics, the models of ships 
and so forth. The riches of this palace are too varied 
and too many. But the little room between the 
Rotunde d'Apollon and the Salle des Sept Cheminees 
I must refer to, because that contains one of the most 
beautiful objects in the whole building — the Etruscan 
funeral casque, the grey-green and gold of which, but 
particularly the grey-green — the hue of verdigris — 
catch the eye so often as one passes and repasses this spot. 
In this room also are miracles of goldsmith's and silver- 
smith's art from the ruins of Pompeii, the gift of Baron 
Edward de Rothschild in 1895; and in the Galerie 
d'Apollon one must of course spend time to study its 
priceless goldsmith's work and carved jewels. But the 
pen swoons at the thought of describing them. 

Further description of the Louvre collections is not 
practicable in this book; nor indeed could any book 
or any library, really do them justice ; nor could one 
obtain more than a faint impression of these riches if 



112 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

one visited the Louvre every morning for a month. But 
that undoubtedly is what one ought to do. Every day 
one should for a while loiter there. 

One entirely loses sight of the fact as one walks 
through the Louvre that it was ever anything but an 
interminable museum, so much so indeed that a separate 
visit is necessary merely to keep our thoughts fixed on 
the history of the palace, for in almost every room 
something of extraordinary interest has happened. 
Kings and Queens have lived, loved, suffered and died 
in them; statesmen have met there to declare war; 
banquets and balls have enlivened them. In the vesti- 
bule or rotunda at the head of the grand staircase on 
the left leading into the glorious steel gates of the 
Galerie d'Apollon, Henri IV., brought hither from the 
Rue de la Ferronerie where Ravaillac stabbed him, 
breathed his last. In the Salle La Caze, where we saw 
the Chardins, were held the great fetes under Charles IX. 
and Henri HI. In the Salle des Caryatides, where 
now is only sculpture, once dangled from the ceiling the 
hanged assassin of President Bresson. 

Another visit is necessary for the examination of the 
paintings on the ceilings, which one never sees or even 
thinks of when one is new to the rooms. But this is a 
duty which is by no means unavoidable. 

The Louvre is to-day the most wonderful museum in 
the world ; but what would one not give to be able to 
visit it as it was in 1814, when it was in some respects 
more wonderful still. For then it was filled with the 



THE PRICE OF HONOUR 113 

spoils of Napoleon's armies, who had instructions always 
to bring back from the conquered cities what they could 
see that was likely to beautify and enrich France. It 
is a reason for war in itself. I would support any war 
with Austria, for example, that would bring to London 
Count Czernin's Vermeer and the Parmigianino in the 
Vienna National Gallery; any war with Germany that 
would put the Berlin National Gallery at our disposal. 
Napoleon had other things to fight for, but that com- 
prehensive brain forgot nothing, and as he deposed a 
king he remembered a blank space in the Louvre that 
lacked a Raphael, an empty niche waiting for its 
Phidias. The Revolution decreed the Museum, but it 
was Napoleon who made it priceless and glorious. After 
the fall of this man a trumpery era of restitution set in. 
Many of his noble patriotic thefts were cancelled out. 
The world readjusted itself and shrank into its old 
pettiness. Priceless pictures and statues were carried 
again to Italy and Austria, Napoleon to St. Helena. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE TUILERIES 

A Vanished Palace — The Most Magnificent Vista — Enter Louis 
XVI. and Marie Antoinette — The Massacre of the Swiss Guards — ■ 
The Blood of Paris — A Series of Disasters — The Growth of Paris — 
The Napoleonic Rebuilders — The Arc de Triomphe de Carrousel — ' 
The Irony of History — -A Frock Coat Rampant — The Statuary of 
Paris — The Gardens of the Tuileries — Monsieur Pol, Chaimer of 
Birds — -The Parisian Sparrow — Hyde Park — The Drum. 

HAD we turned our back only thirty-eight years 
ago on Fremiet's statue of Joan of Arc (which 
was not there then) in the Place de Rivoli, and walked 
down what is now the Rue de Tuileries towards the 
Seine, we should have had on our left hand a beautiful 
and imposing building — the Palace of the Tuileries, 
which united the two wings of the Louvre that now 
terminate in the Pavilion de Marsan just by the Place 
de Rivoli and the Pavilion de Flore on the Quai des 
Tuileries. The palace stretched right across this inter- 
val, thus interrupting the wonderful vista of to-day 
from the old Louvre right away to the Arc de Triomphe 
— probably the most extraordinary and beautiful civi- 
lised, or artificial, vista in the world. The palace had, 
however, a sufficiently fine if curtailed share of it from 
its own windows. 

114 



HISTORY AGAIN 115 

All Parisians upwards of forty-five must remember 
the Palace perfectly, for it was not destroyed until 1871, 
during the Commune, and it was some years after that 
incendiary period before all traces were removed and 
the gardens spread uninterruptedly from the Carrousel 
to the Concorde. 

The Palace of the Tuileries (so called because it 
occupied a site previously covered by tile kilns) was 
begun in 1564 and had therefore lived for three cen- 
turies. Catherine de Medicis planned it, but, as we 
shall read later, she lost interest in it very quickly 
owing to one of those inconvenient prophecies which 
were wont in earlier times so to embarrass rulers, but 
which to-day in civilised countries have entirely gone 
out. The Tuileries was a happy enough palace, as 
palaces go, until the Revolution: it then became for 
a while the very centre of rebellion and carnage; for 
Louis XVI. and the Royal Family were conveyed 
thither after the fatal oath had been sworn in the 
Versailles tennis-court. Then came the critical 10th of 
August, when the King consented to attend the confer- 
ence in the Manege (now no more, but a tablet oppo- 
ite the Rue Castiglione marks the spot) and thus lost 
everything. 

The massacre of the Swiss Guards followed : but here 
it is impossible, or at least absurd, not to hear Carlyle. 
Mandal, Commander of the National Guard, I would 
premise, has been assassinated by the crowd ; the Con- 
stitutional Assembly sits in the Manege, and the King, 



116 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

a prisoner in the Tuileries, but still a hesitant and an 
optimist, is ordered to attend it. At last he consents. 
"King Louis sits, his hands leant on his knees, body 
bent forward; gazes for a space fixedly on Syndic 
Roederer; then answers, looking over his shoulder to 
the Queen: Marchons! They march; King Louis, 
Queen, Sister Elizabeth, the two royal children and 
governess : these, with Syndic Roederer, and Officials of 
the Department; amid a double rank of National 
Guards. The men with blunderbusses, the steady red 
Swiss gaze mournfully, reproachfully; but hear only 
these words from Syndic Roederer : ' The King is going 
to the Assembly; make way.' It has struck eight, on 
all clocks, some minutes ago: the King has left the 
Tuileries — for ever. 

"O ye stanch Swiss, ye gallant gentlemen in black, 
for what a cause are ye to spend and be spent ! Look 
out from the western windows, ye may see King Louis 
placidly hold on his way; the poor little Prince Royal 
'sportfully kicking the fallen leaves.' Fremescent 
multitude on the Terrace of the Feuillants whirls 
parallel to him ; one man in it, very noisy, with a long 
pole: will they not obstruct the outer Staircase, and 
back-entrance of the Salle, when it comes to that.'' 
King's Guards can go no farther than the bottom step 
there. Lo, Deputation of Legislators come out; he of 
the long pole is stilled by oratory; Assembly's Guards 
join themselves to King's Guards, and all may mount 
in this case of necessity; the outer Staircase is free, or 



THE SWISS GUARDS 117 

passable. See, Royalty ascends ; a blue Grenadier lifts 
the poor little Prince Royal from the press; Royalty 
has entered in. Royalty has vanished for ever from 
your eyes. — And ye ^ Left standing there, amid the 
yawning abysses, and earthquake of Insurrection ; with- 
out course ; without command : if ye perish, it must 
be as more than martyrs, as martyrs who are now with- 
out a cause ! The black Courtiers disappear mostly ; 
through such issues as they can. The poor Swiss know 
not how to act : one duty only is clear to them, that of 
standing by their post ; and they will perform that. 

"But the glittering steel tide has arrived; it beats 
now against the Chateau barriers and eastern Courts; 
irresistible, loud-surging far and wide ; — breaks in, fills 
the Court of the Carrousel, blackbrowed Marseillese 
in the van. King Louis gone, say you; over to the 
Assembly ! Well and good : but till the Assembly 
pronounce Forfeiture of him, what boots it.'' Our 
post is in that Chateau or stronghold of his; there 
till then must we continue. Think, ye stanch Swiss, 
whether it were good that grim murder began, and 
brothers blasted one another in pieces for a stone 
edifice ? — Poor Swiss ! they know not how to act : from 
the southern windows, some fling cartridges, in sign of 
brotherhood ; on the eastern outer staircase, and within 
through long stairs and corridors, they stand firm- 
ranked, peaceable and yet refusing to stir. Westermann 
speaks to them in Alsatian German; Marseillese plead, 
in hot Proven 9al speech and pantomime ; stunning hub- 



118 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

bub pleads and threatens, infinite, around. The Swiss 
stand fast, peaceable and yet immovable; red granite 
pier in that waste-flashing sea of steel. 

" Who can help the inevitable issue ; Marseillese and 
all France on this side; granite Swiss on that.^ The 
pantomime grows hotter and hotter ; Marseillese sabres 
flourishing by way of action ; the Swiss brow also cloud- 
ing itself, the Swiss thumb bringing its firelock to the 
cock. And hark ! high thundering above all the din, 
three Marseillese cannon from the Carrousel, pointed by 
a gunner of bad aim, come rattling over the roofs ! Ye 
Swiss, therefore : Fire ! The Swiss fire ; by volley, by 
platoon, in rolling fire : Marseillese men not a few, and 
'a tall man that was louder than any,' lie silent, smashed 
upon the pavement ; — not a few Marseillese, after the 
long dusty march, have made halt here. The Carrousel 
is void; the black tide recoiling; 'fugitives rushing 
as far as Saint-Antoine before they stop.' The Can- 
noneers without linstock have squatted invisible, and 
left their cannon ; which the Swiss seize. . . . 

"Behold, the fire slackens not; nor does the Swiss 
rolling-fire slacken from within. Nay they clutched 
cannon, as we saw ; and now, from the other side, they 
clutch three pieces more ; alas, cannon without linstock ; 
nor will the steel-and-flint answer, though they try it. 
Had it chanced to answer ! Patriot onlookers have 
their misgivings ; one strangest Patriot onlooker thinks 
that the Swiss, had they a commander, would beat. 
He is a man not unqualified to judge ; the name of him 



CARNAGE 119 

Napoleon Buonaparte. And onlookers, and women, 
stand gazing, and the witty Dr. Moore of Glasgow 
among them, on the other side of the River: cannon 
rush rumbling past them; pause on the Pont Royal; 
belch out their iron entrails there, against the Tuileries ; 
and at every new belch, the women and onlookers ' shout 
and clap hands.' City of all the Devils ! In remote 
streets, men are drinking breakfast-coffee; following 
their affairs; with a start now and then, as some dull 
echo reverberates a note louder. And here ? Marseil- 
lese fall wounded ; but Barbaroux has surgeons ; Barba- 
roux is close by, managing, though underhand and under 
cover. Marseillese fall death-struck; bequeath their 
firelock, specify in "which pocket are the cartridges; and 
die murmuring, ' Revenge me, Revenge thy country ! ' 
Brest Federe Officers, galloping in red coats, are shot as 
Swiss. Lo you, the Carrousel has burst into flame ! — 
Paris Pandemonium ! Nay the poor City, as we said, 
is in fever-fit and convulsion : such crisis has lasted for 
the space of some half hour. 

"But what is this that, with Legislative Insignia, 
ventures through the hubbub and death-hail, from the 
back-entrance of the Manege ? Towards the Tuileries 
and Swiss: written Order from his Majesty to cease 
firing ! O ye hapless Swiss, why was there no order not 
to begin it ? Gladly would the Swiss cease firing : but 
who will bid mad Insurrection cease firing.'* To In- 
surrection you cannot speak; neither can it, hydra- 
headed, hear. The dead and dying, by the hundred, 



120 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

lie all around ; are borne bleeding through the streets, 
towards help; the sight of them, like a torch of the 
Furies, kindling Madness. Patriot Paris roars ; as the 
bear bereaved of her whelps. On, ye Patriots : Ven- 
geance ! Victory or death ! There are men seen, who 
rush on, armed only with walking-sticks. Terror and 
Fury rule the hour. 

" The Swiss, pressed on from without, paralysed from 
within, have ceased to shoot; but not to be shot. 
What shall they do.? Desperate is the moment. 
Shelter or instant death : yet How, Where ? One 
party flies out by the Rue de I'Echelle; is destroyed 
utterly, ' en efitier.' A second, by the other side, throws 
itself into the Garden; 'hurrying across a keen fusil- 
lade'; rushes suppliant into the National Assembly; 
finds pity and refuge in the back benches there. The 
third, and largest, darts out in column, three hundred 
strong, towards the Champs-Elysees : 'Ah, could we 
but reach Courbevoye, where other Swiss are ! ' Wo ! 
see, in such fusillade the column ' soon breaks itself by 
diversity of opinion,' into distracted segments, this way 
and that ; — to escape in holes, to die fighting from street 
to street. The firing and murdering will not cease; 
not yet for long. The red Porters of Hotels are shot 
at, be they Suisse by nature, or Suisse only in name. . . . 

" Surely few things in the history of carnage are pain- 
fuller. What ineffaceable red streak, flickering so sad 
in the memory, is that, of this poor column of red Swiss 
' breaking itself in the confusion of opinions ' ; dispers- 



VICISSITUDES 121 

ing, into blackness and death ! Honour to you, brave 
men ; honourable pity, through long times ! Not 
martyrs were ye; and 3^et almost more. He was no 
King of yours, this Louis; and he forsook you like a 
King of shreds and patches: ye were but sold to him 
for some poor sixpence a-day; yet would ye work for 
your wages, keep your plighted word. The work now 
was to die; and ye did it. Honour to you, O Kins- 
men." 

Is that too dreadful an association for this spot ? It 
is terrible ; but to visit Paris without any historical in- 
terest is too materialistic a proceeding, and to have the 
historical interest in Paris and be afraid of a little blood 
is an untenable position. Paris is steeped in blood. 

The Tuileries had not seen all its riot yet ; July 29th, 
1830, was to come, when, after another taste of mon- 
archy, revived in 1814 after its murder on that appalling 
10th of August (which was virtually its death day, al- 
though the date of the birth of the First Republic stands 
as September 21st, 1793), the mob attacked the Palace, 
the last Bourbon king, Charles X., fled from it and from 
France, and Louis-Philippe o£ Orleans mounted the 
throne in his stead. But that was not all. Another 
seventeen and a half years and revengeful time saw 
Louis-Philippe, last of the Orleans kings, escaping in 
his turn from another besieging crowd, and the establish- 
ment of the Second Republic. 

During the Second Empire some of the old splendour 
returned, and it was here, at the Tuileries, that Napo- 



122 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

leon III. drew up many of his plans for the modern 
Paris that we now know ; and then came the Prussian 
war and the Third Repubhc, and then the terrible Com- 
munard insurrection in the spring of 1871, in which the 
Tuileries disappeared for ever. Napoleon III., as I have 
said, assisted by Baron Haussmann, toiled in the great 
pacific task of renovating Paris, not with the imagina- 
tive genius of his uncle but with an undeniable largeness 
and sagacity. He it was who added so greatly to the 
Louvre — all that part in fact opposite the Place du 
Palais Royal and the Magasins du Louvre as far west 
as the Rue de Rohan. A large portion of the corre- 
sponding wing on the river side was his too. But here 
is a list, since we are on the subject of modern Paris — 
which began with the great Napoleon's reconstruction 
of the ravages (beneficial for the most part) of the Re- 
volutionaries — of the efforts made by each ruler since 
that epoch. I borrow the table from the Marquis de 
Rochegude. 

" Napoleon I. — Arc de Triomphe de Carrousel, Ven- 
dome Column, Fa9ade du Corps Legislatif, Commence- 
ment of the Arc de Triomphe de I'Etoile, La Bourse, 
the Bridges d'Austerlitz, d'lena, des Arts, de la Cite, 
several Markets, Quais d'Orsay, de Billy, du Louvre, 
Montebello, de la Tournelle ; the Eastern and Northern 
Cemeteries ; numbering the houses in 1806, begun with- 
out success in 1728; pavements in the streets and 
doing away with the streams or flowing gutters in the 
middle of the streets." (How like Napoleon to get the 



THE BUILDERS 123 

houses numbered on a clear system ! Throughout Paris 
the odd numbers occupy one side of the street and the 
even the other. All are numbered from the Seine out- 
wards.) 

"The Restoration. — Chapel Expiatoire, N.D. de 
Bonne-Nouvelle, N.D. de Lorette, St. Vincent de Paul; 
Bridges of the Invalides, of the Archbishopric, d'Arcole ; 
Canals of St. Denis and St. Martin ; fifty-five new streets ; 
lighting by gas." (It was about 1828 that cabs came 
in. They were called fiacres from the circumstance that 
their originator carried on his business at the sign of 
the Grand St. Fiacre.) 

"Louis Philippe, 1830-1848. — Finished the Made- 
leine, Arc de Triomphe, erected the Obelisk (Place de la 
Concorde), Column of July; Bridges: Louis-Philippe, 
Carrousel ; Palace of the Quai d'Orsay ; enlarged the 
Palais de Justice; restored Notre Dame and Sainte 
Chapelle; Fountains: Louvois, Cuvier, St. Sulpice, 
Gaillon, Moliere ; opened the Museums of Cluny and the 
Thermes. In 1843 — 1,100 streets. 

"Napoleon III., 1852-1870. — Embellished Paris — 
execution of Haussmann's plans, twenty-two new boule- 
vards; Streets Lafayette, Quatre-Septembre, deTurbigo; 
Bvd. St. Germain ; Rues des Ecoles, de Rivoli, the Champs- 
Elysees Quarter, the Avenues Friedland, Hoche, Kleber, 
the Marceau, de LTmperatrice, many squares ; a part of 
new Louvre; Churches of St. Augustine, The Trinity, 
St. Ambroise, St. Clotilde (finishing of) ; Theatres, 
Chatelet, Lyrique, du Vaudeville; Tribunal of Com- 



124 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

merce, Hotel Dieu, Barracks, Central Markets (also the 
ceinture railway) ; finishing of the Laribosiere hospital, 
the Fountain of St. Michel, the Bridges of Solferino, 
L'Alma, the Pont au Change. In 1861 — 1,667,841 in- 
habitants. 

" The Commune. — Burning of the Tuileries, the 
Ministry of Finance, the Louvre Library, the Hotel de 
Ville, the Palace of the Legion of Honour, the Palace 
of the Quai d'Orsay, the ^^yric, the Chatelet and the 
Porte St. Martin theatres, etc. 

" The Republic. — Reconstruction of the buildings 
burnt by the Commune ; Avenue de I'Opera, the Opera 
House ; Streets : Etienne Marcel, Reaumur, Avenue de la 
Republique, etc. In 1892, 4,090 streets, in 1902 there 
were 4,261 streets. The Exhibition 1878 left the Tro- 
cadero, and that of 1889 the Eiffel Tower, and that of 
1900 the two Palaces of the Champs-Elysees and the 
bridge Alexander III." (To this one should add the 
Metro, still uncompleted, which has the advantage over 
London's Tubes of being only just below the surface, 
so that no lift is needed.) 

The Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, at the east end 
of the gardens, is a mere child compared with the Arc 
de Triomphe de I'Etoile, which stands there, so serenely 
and magnificently, at the end of the vista in the west, 
nearly two amazing miles away; it could be placed 
easily, with many feet to spare, under that greater 
monument's arch (as Victor Hugo's coffin was) ; but it 
is more beautiful. Both were the \york of Napoleon, 






ir 



< 



TIME'S REVENGES AGAIN 125 

both celebrate the victories of 1805-06. The Carrousel 
is surmounted by a triumphal car and four horses ; but 
here again, as in the case of the statue of Henri IV. 
on the Pont Neuf, there have been ironical changes. 
Napoleon, when he ordained the arch, which was in- 
tended largely to reproduce that of Severus at Rome, 
ravished for its crowning the quadriga from St. Mark's 
at Venice: those glorious gleaming horses over the 
door. That was as it should be: he was a conqueror 
and entitled to the spoils of conquest. But after his 
fall came, as we have seen, a pedantic disgorgement of 
such treasure; the golden team trotted back to the 
Adriatic, and a new decoration had to be provided for 
the Carrousel. Hence the present one, which represents 
— what ? It is almost inconceivable ; but, Louis XVIII. 
having commissioned it, it represents the triumph no 
longer of Napoleon but of the Restoration ! Amusing 
to remember this under the Third Republic, as one 
looks up at it and then at the bas-reliefs of the battle of 
Austerlitz, the peace of Tilsit, the capitulation of Ulm, 
the entry into Munich, the entry into Vienna and the 
peace of Pressburg. Time's revenges indeed. 

Standing under the Arc du Carrousel one makes the 
interesting but disappointing discovery that the Arc de 
Triomphe, the column of Luxor in the Place de la 
Concorde, the fountain, the Arc du Carrousel, the 
Gambetta monument and the Pavilion Sully of the 
Louvre do not form a straight line, as by all the laws of 
French architectural symmetry they should — especially 



126 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

here, where compasses and rulers seem to have been 
at work on every inch of the ground, and, as I have 
ascertained, general opinion considers them to do. All 
is well, from the west, until the Arc du Carrousel ; it is 
the Gambetta and the Pavilion Sully that throw it out. 

The Gambetta ! This monument fascinates me, not 
by its beauty nor because I have any especial reverence 
for the statesman; but simply by the vigour of his 
clothes, the frock coat and the light overcoat of the 
flamboyant orator, holding forth for evermore (or until 
his hour strikes), urgent and impetuous and French. 
To the frock coat in sculpture we in London are no 
strangers, for have we not Parliament Square ? but our 
frock coats are quiescent, dead even, things of stone. 
Gambetta's, on the contrary, is tempestuous — surely the 
most heroic frock coat that ever emerged from the 
quarries of Carrara. It might have been cut by the 
Great Mel himself. 

I have never seen a computation of the stone and 
bronze population of Paris, but the statues must be 
thousands strong. A Pied Piper leading them out of 
the city would be worth seeing, although I for one 
would regret their loss. Paris, I suppose, was Paris no 
less than now in the days before Gambetta masqueraded 
as a Frock Coated Victory almost within hail of the 
Winged Victory of Samothrace; but Paris certainly 
would not be Paris any more were some new turn of 
the wheel to whisk him away and leave the Place du 
Carrousel forlorn and tepid. The loss even of the smug 



A GREEN SHADE 127 

figure of Jules Simon, just outside Duraiid's, would be 
something like a bereavement. I once, by the way, 
saw this statue wearing, after a snowstorm, a white fur 
cap and cape that gave him a character — something 
almost Siberian — beyond anything dreamed of by the 
sculptor. 

It is not until one has walked through the gardens 
of the Tuileries that the wealth of statuary in Paris 
begins to impress the mind. For there must be almost 
as many statues as flowers. They shine or glimmer 
everywhere, as in the Athenian groves — allegorical, 
symbolical, mythological, naked. The Luxembourg 
Gardens, as we shall see, are hardly less rich, but there 
one finds the statues of real persons. Here, as becomes 
a formal garden projected by a king, realism is excluded. 
Formal it is in the extreme; the trees are sternly 
pollarded, the beds are mathematically laid out, the 
paths are straight and not to be deviated from. None 
the less on a hot summer's day there are few more de- 
lightful spots, with the placid bonnes sitting so solidly, 
as only French women can sit, over their needlework, 
and their charges flitting like discreet butterflies all 
around them ; and here are two old philosophers — an- 
other Bouvard and Pecuchet — discussing some prob- 
lem of conduct or science, and there a family party 
lunching heartily, without shame. Pleasant groves, 
pleasant people ! 

But the best thing in the Tuileries is M. Pol. Who 
is M. Pol ? Well, he may not be the most famous man 



128 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

in Paris, but he is certainly the most engaging. M. Pol 
is the charmer of birds — " Le Charmeur d'oiseaux au 
Jardin des Tuileries," to give him his full title. There 
may be other charmers too at their pretty labours ; but 
M. Pol comes easily first: his personality is so attrac- 
tive, his terms of intercourse with the birds so intimate. 
His oiseaux are chiefly sparrows, whom he knows by 
name — La Princesse, Le Loustic, Garibaldi, La Ba- 
ronne, I'Anglais, and so forth. They come one by one 
at his call, and he pets them and praises them; talks 
pretty ironical talk; uses them (particularly the little 
brown I'Anglais) for sly satirical purposes, for there are 
usually a few English spectators; affects to admonish 
and even chastise them, shuffling minatory feet with all 
the noise but none of the illusion of seriousness; and 
never ceases the while to scatter his crumbs or seeds of 
comfort. It is a very charming little drama, and al- 
though carried on every day, and for some hours every 
day, it has no suggestion of routine; one feels that the 
springs of it are sweetness and benevolence. 

He is a typical elderly Latin, this M. Pol, a little 
unmindful as to his dress, a little inclined to shamble: 
humorous, careless, gentle. When I first saw him, 
years ago, he fed his birds and went his way : but he now 
makes a little money by it too, now and then offering, 
very reluctantly, postcards bearing pictures of himself 
with all his birds about him and a distich or so from 
his pen. For M. Pol is a poet in words as well as 
deeds : " De nos petits oiseaux," he writes on one card : — 



M. POL 129 

" De nos petits oiseaux, je suis le bienfaiteur, 
Et'je vais tous les jours leur donner la pature, 
Mais suivant un contrat dicte par nature 
Quand je donne mon pain, ils me donnent leur coeur." 

I think this true. It is a little more than cupboard 
love that inspires these tiny creatures, or they would 
never settle on M. Pol's hands and shoulders as they do. 
He has charmed the pigeons also; but here he admits 
to a lower motive : — 

" lis savent, les malins, que leur couvert est mis, 
C'est en faisant du bien qu'on se fait des amis." 

It amused me one day at the Louvre to fix one of 
these photographs in the frame of Giotto's picture of 
St. Francis (in Salle VII.), one of the scenes of which 
shows him preaching to the birds: thus bridging the 
gulf between the centuries and making for the moment 
the Assisi of the Saint and the Paris of M. Briand one. 

London has its noticeable lovers of animals too — you 
may see in St. Paul's churchyard in the dinner hour 
isolated figures surrounded and covered by pigeons : the 
British Museum courtyard also knows one or two, and 
the Guildhall: quite like Venice, both of them, save 
that no one is excited about it; while in St. James's 
Square may be seen at all hours of every day the 
mysterious cat woman with her pensioners all about 
her on their little mats. Every city has these humor- 
ists — shall I say ? using the word as it was wont to be 
used long ago. But M. Pol — M. Pol stands alone. It 
is not merely that he charms the birds but that he is 



130 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

so charming with them. The pigeon feeders of London 
whom I have watched bring their maize, distribute it and 
go. M. Pol is more of a St. Francis than that: as I 
have shown, he converses, jokes and exchanges moods 
with his friends. 

Although he is acquainted with pigeons, his real friends 
are the gamins of the air, the sparrows, true Parisians, 
who have the best news. Pigeons, one can conceive, 
pick up a fact here and there, but it would have a 
foreign or provincial flavour. Now if there is one thing 
which bores a true Parisian it is talk of what is happen- 
ing outside Paris. The Parisian's horizons do not extend 
beyond his city. The sun for him rises out of the Bois 
de Vincennes, and evening comes because it has sunk-into 
the Bois de Boulogne. Hence M. Pol's wisdom in choos- 
ing the sparrow for his companion, his oiseau intime. 

So far had I written when I chanced to walk into 
London by way of Hyde Park, and there, just by the 
Achilles statue, was a charming gentleman in a tall 
white hat whistling a low whistle to a little band of 
sparrows who followed him and surrounded him and 
fluttered up, one by one, to his hand. We talked a 
little together, and he told me that the birds never for- 
get him, though he is absent for eight months each year. 
His whistle brings them at once. So London is all right 
after all. And I have been told delightful things about 
the friends of the grey squirrels in Central Park; so 
New York perhaps is all right too. 

The Round Pond of Paris is at the Tuileries — not so 



WE LEAVE THE TUILERIES 131 

vast as the mare clausum of Kensington Gardens, but 
capable of accommodating many argosies. Leaving this 
Pond behind us and making for the Place de la Concorde, 
we have on the right the remains of a monastery of the 
Cistercians, one of the many religious houses which stood 
all about the north of the Gardens at the time of the 
Revolution and were first discredited and emptied by 
the votaries of Reason and then swept away by Napoleon 
when he made the Rue de Rivoli. The building on 
the left is the Orangery. It is in this part that the 
temporary pavilions are erected for the banquets to pro- 
vincial mayors and such pleasant ceremonies, while in 
the summer some little exhibition is usually in progress. 
But what is that sound "^ The beating of a drum. 
We must hasten to the gates, for that means closing- 
time. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE PLACE DE LA CONCORDE — THE CHAMPS- 
ELYSEES AND THE INVALIDES 

A Dangerous Crossing — An Ill-omened Place — Louis the XVII. in 
Prosperity and Adversity — January 21st, 1793 — The End of 
Robespierre — The Luxor Column — The Congress of Wheels — 
England and France — The Champs-Elysees — The Pare Monceau 
— A Terrestrial Paradise — Oriental Museums — The Etoile's 
Tributaries — The Arc de Triomphe — The Avenue du Bois de 
Boulogne — A Vast Pleasure-ground — Happy Sundays — Long- 
champ — The Pari-mutuel — Spotting a Winner — Two Crowded 
Corners — The Rival Salons — The Palais des Beaux-Arts — 
Dutch Masters — Modern French Painters — Superb Drawing — 
Fairies among the Statues — The Pont d'Alexandre III. — The 
Fairs of Paris — - A Vast Alms-house — A Model Museum — Relics 
of Napoleon — The Second Funeral of Napoleon — The Tomb 
of Napoleon. 

THE Place de la Concorde by day is vast rather 
than beautiful, and by night it is a congress of 
lamps. By both it is dangerous and in bad weather as 
exposed as the open sea. But it is sacred ground and 
Paris is unthinkable without it. The interest of the 
Place is summed up in the Luxor column, which may 
perhaps be said to mark what is perhaps the most 
critical site in modern history; for where the obelisk 
now stands stood not so very long ago the guillotine. 
The Place's name has been Concorde only since 1830. 
132 



FEU DE TRAGEDIE 133 

It began in 1763, when a bronze statue of Louis XV. 
on horseback was erected there, surrounded by emble- 
matic figures, from the chisel of Pigalle, of Prudence, 
Justice, Force and Peace. Hence the characteristic 
French epigram : — 

"O la belle statue, O le beau pedestal! 
Les Virtues sont a pied, le Vice est a cheval." 

Before this time the Place had been an open and un- 
cultivated space ; it was now enclosed, surrounded with 
fosses, made trim, and called La Place Louis Quinze. 
In 1770, however, came tragedy; for on the occasion of 
the marriage of the Dauphin, afterwards the luckless 
Louis XVI., with the equally luckless Marie Antoinette, 
a display of fireworks was given, during which one of 
the rockets (as one always dreads at every display) 
declined the sky and rushed horizontally into the crowd, 
and in the resulting stampede thousands of persons fell 
into the ditches, twelve hundred being killed outright 
and two thousand injured. 

Twenty-two years later, kings having suddenly be- 
come cheap, the National Convention ordered the statue 
of Louis XV. to be melted down and recast into cannon, 
a clay figure of Liberte to be set up in its stead, and 
the name to be changed to the Place de la Revolution. 
This was done, and a little later the guillotine was erected 
a few yards west of the spot where the Luxor column 
now stands, primarily for the removal of the head of 
Louis XVI., in whose honour those unfortunate fireworks 
had been ignited. The day was January 21st, 1793. 



134 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

"King Louis," says Carlyle, "slept sound, till five 
in the morning, when Clery, as he had been ordered, 
awoke him. Clery dressed his hair: while this went 
forward, Louis took a ring from his watch, and kept 
trying it on his finger; it was his wedding-ring, which 
he is now to return to the Queen as a mute farewell. 
At half-past six, he took the Sacrament ; and continued 
in devotion, and conference with Abbe Edgeworth. He 
will not see his Family : it were too hard to bear. 

"At eight, the Municipals enter: the King gives 
them his Will, and messages and effects; which they, 
at first, brutally refuse to take charge of : he gives them 
a roll of gold pieces, a hundred and twenty-five louis; 
these are to be returned to Malesherbes, who had lent 
them. At nine, Santerre says the hour is come. The 
King begs yet to retire for three minutes. At the end 
of three minutes, Santerre again says the hour is come. 
'Stamping on the ground with his right-foot, Louis 
answers: " Partons, Let us go."' — How the rolling 
of those drums comes in, through the Temple bastions 
and bulwarks, on the heart of a queenly wife ; soon to 
be a widow ! He is gone, then, and has not seen us ? 
A Queen weeps bitterly; a King's Sister and Children. 
Over all these Four does Death also hover: all shall 
perish miserably save one ; she, as Duchesse d'Angou- 
leme, will live, — not happily. 

" At the Temple Gate were some faint cries, perhaps 
from voices of pitiful women : ' Grace ! Grace ! ' Through 
the rest of the streets there is silence as of the grave. 



JANUARY 21sT, 1793 135 

No map not armed is allowed to be there : the armed, 
did any even pity, dare not express it, each man over- 
awed by all his neighbours. All windows are down, 
none seen looking through them. All shops are shut. 
No wheel-carriage rolls, this morning, in these streets but 
one only. Eighty thousand armed men stand ranked, 
like armed statues of men ; cannons bristle, cannoneers 
with match burning, but no word or movement: it 
is as a city enchanted into silence and stone: one car- 
riage with its escort, slowly rumbling, is the only sound. 
Louis reads, in his Book of Devotion, the Prayers of 
the Dying: clatter of this death-march falls sharp on 
the ear, in the great silence ; but the thought would fain 
struggle heavenward, and forget the Earth. 

"As the clocks strike ten, behold the Place de la 
Revolution, once Place de Louis Quinze : the Guillotine, 
mounted near the old Pedestal where once stood the 
Statue of that Louis ! Far round, all bristles with 
cannons and armed men : spectators crowding in the 
rear ; D'Orleans Egalite there in cabriolet. Swift mes- 
sengers, hoquetons, speed to the Townhall, every three 
minutes : near by is the Convention sitting, — vengeful 
for Lepelletier. Heedless of all, Louis reads his Prayers 
of the Dying; not till five minutes yet has he finished; 
then the Carriage opens. What temper he is in ? Ten 
different witnesses will give ten different accounts of it. 
He is in the collision of all tempers ; arrived now at the 
black Maelstrom and descent of Death : in sorrow, in 
indignation, in resignation struggling to be resigned. 



136 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

'Take care of M. Edgeworth,' he straitly charges the 
Lieutenant who is sitting with them: then they two 
descend. 

" The drums are beating : ' Taisez-vous, Silence ! ' 
he cries 'in a terrible voice, d'une voix terrible.' He 
mounts the scaffold, not without delay; he is in puce 
coat, breeches of grey, white stockings. He strips off 
the coat ; stands disclosed in a sleeve-waistcoat of white 
flannel. The Executioners approach to bind him: he 
spurns, resists; Abbe Edgeworth has to remind him 
how the Saviour, in whom men trust, submitted to be 
bound. His hands are tied, his head bare, the fatal 
moment is come. He advances to the edge of the 
Scaffold, ' his face very red,' and says : ' Frenchmen, I 
die innocent : it is from the Scaffold and near appearing 
before God that I tell you so. I pardon my enemies: 

I desire that France ' A General on horseback, 

Santerre or another, prances out, with uplifted hand: 
' Tambours ! ' The drums drown the voice. ' Execu- 
tioners, do your duty ! ' The Executioners, desperate 
lest themselves be murdered (for Santerre and his Armed 
Ranks will strike, if they do not), seize the hapless 
Louis: six of them desperate, him singly desperate, 
struggling there; and bind him to their plank. Abbe 
Edgeworth, stooping, bespeaks him: 'Son of Saint 
Louis, ascend to Heaven.' The Axe clanks down; a 
King's life is shorn away. It is Monday the 21st of 
January, 1793. He was aged Thirty-eight years, four 
months and twenty-eight days. 



HEADSMAN SAMSON 137 

" Executioner Samson shows the Head : fierce shout 
of Vive la Republique rises, and swells ; caps raised on 
bayonets, hats waving; students of the College of Four 
Nations take it up, on the far Quais ; fling it over Paris. 
D'Orleans drives off in his cabriolet: the Townhall 
Councillors rub their hands, saying, 'It is done. It is 
done.' There is dipping of handkerchiefs, of pike- 
points in the blood. Headsman Samson, though he 
afterwards denied it, sells locks of the hair : fractions of 
the puce coat are long after worn in rings. — And so, in 
some half-hour it is done; and the multitude has all 
departed. Pastry-cooks, coffee-sellers, milkmen sing 
out their trivial quotidian cries : the world wags on, as 
if this were a common day. In the coffee-houses that 
evening, says Prudhomme, Patriot shook hands with 
Patriot in a more cordial manner than usual. Not till 
some days after, according to Mercier, did public men 
see what a grave thing it was." 

The guillotine for more ordinary purposes worked in 
the Place du Carrousel, not far from Gambetta's statue 
to-day; but from May, 1793, until June, 1794, it was 
back in the Place de la Concorde (then Place de la 
Revolution) again, accounting during that time for no 
fewer than 1,235 offenders, including Charlotte Corday, 
Madame Roland and Marie Antoinette. The blood 
flowed daily, while the tricoteuses looked on over their 
knitting and the mob howled. 

Another removal, to the Place de la Bastille, and then 
on 28th July, 1794, the engine of justice or vengeance 



138 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

was back again to end a life and the Reign of Terror 
in one blow. What life? But listen: "Robespierre 
lay in an anteroom of the Convention Hall, while his 
Prison-escort was getting ready ; the mangled jaw bound 
up rudely with bloody linen : a spectacle to men. He 
lies stretched on a table, a deal-box his pillow; the 
sheath of the pistol is still clenched convulsively in his 
hand. Men bully him, insult him : his eyes still indicate 
intelligence; he speaks no word. 'He had on the sky- 
blue coat he had got made for the Feast of the Eire 
Supreme ' — O Reader, can thy hard heart hold out 
against that ? His trousers were nankeen ; the stockings 
had fallen down over the ankles. He spake no word 
more in this world. 

" And so, at six in the morning, a victorious Convention 
adjourns. Report flies over Paris as on golden wings ; 
penetrates the Prisons; irradiates the faces of those 
that were ready to perish : turnkeys and moutons, fallen 
from their high estate, look mute and blue. It is the 
28th day of July, called 10th of Thermidor, year 1794. 

"Fouquier had but to identify; his Prisoners being 
already Out of Law. At four in the afternoon, never 
before were the streets of Paris seen so crowded. From 
the Palais de Justice to the Place de la Revolution, 
for thither again go the Tumbrils this time, it is one 
dense stirring mass; all windows crammed; the very 
roofs and ridge-tiles budding forth human Curiosity, 
in strange gladness. The Death-tumbrils, with their 
motley Batch of Outlaws, some twenty-three or so, 



ROBESPIERRE'S TURN 139 

from ]\Iaximilien to Mayor Fleuriot and Simon the 
Cordwainer, roll on. All eyes are on Robespierre's 
Tumbril, where he, his jaw bound in dirty linen, with his 
half-dead Brother and half-dead Henriot, lie shattered ; 
their 'seventeen hours' of agony about to end. The 
Gendarmes point their swords at him, to show the 
people which is he. A woman springs on the Tumbril ; 
clutching the side of it with one hand, waving the other 
Sibyl-like ; and exclaims : ' The death of thee gladdens 
my very heart, m^enivre de joie'; Robespierre opened 
his eyes; ' Scelerat, go down to Hell, with the curses 
of all wives and mothers ! ' — At the foot of the scaffold, 
they stretched him on the ground till his turn came. 
Lifted aloft, his eyes again opened ; caught the bloody 
axe. Samson wrenched the coat off him ; wrenched the 
dirty linen from his jaw: the jaw fell powerless, there 
burst from him a cry ; — hideous to hear and see. Sam- 
son, thou canst not be too quick ! 

"Samson's work done, there bursts forth shout on 
shout of applause. Shout, which prolongs itself not 
only over Paris, but over France, but over Europe, and 
down to this generation. Deservedly, and also unde- 
servedly. O unhappiest Advocate of Arras, wert thou 
worse than other Advocates ? Stricter man, according 
to his Formula, to his Credo and his Cant, of probities, 
benevolences, pleasures-of -virtue, and suchlike, lived not 
in that age. A man fitted, in some luckier settled age, 
to have become one of those incorruptible barren Pat- 
tern-Figures, and have had marble-tablets and funeral- 



140 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

sermons. His poor landlord, the Cabinet-maker in the 
Rue Saint-Honore, loved him ; his Brother died for him. 
May God be merciful to him and to us ! 
"This is the end of the Reign of Terror." 
In 1799 the Place won its name Concorde. The 
next untoward sight that it was to see was Prussian and 
Russian soldiers encamping there in 1814 and 1815, and 
in 1815 the British. By this time it had been renamed 
Place Louis Quinze, which in 1826 was changed to Place 
Louis Seize, and a project was afoot for raising a monu- 
ment to that monarch's memory on the spot where he 
fell. But the Revolution of 1830 intervened, and " Con- 
corde" resumed its sway, and in 1836 Louis-Philippe, 
the new king (whose father, Philippe Egalite, had 
perished on the guillotine here), erected the Luxor 
column, which had been given to him by Mohammed 
Ali, and had once stood before the great temple of 
Thebes commemorating on its sides the achievements 
of Rameses II. Since then certain symbolic statues of 
the great French cities (including unhappy Strassburg) 
have been set up, and the Place is a model of symmetry, 
and at the time that I write (1909) a great part of it 
is enclosed within hoardings for I know not what pur- 
pose, but I hope a subway for the saving of the lives of 
pedestrians, for it must be the most perilous crossing in 
the world. One has but to set foot in the roadway and 
straightway motor-cars and cabs spring out of the earth 
and converge upon one from every point of the compass, 
in the amazing French way. Concorde, indeed ! 




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THE ELYSIAN FIELDS 141 

If the, Place de la Concorde may be called at night a 
congress of lamps, the Champs-Elysees in the afternoon 
may be said to be a congress of wheels. Wheels in such 
numbers and revolving at such a pace are never seen in 
England, not even on the Epsom road on Derby Day. 
For there is no speed limit for the French motor-car. 
Nor have we in England anything like this superb 
roadway, so wide and open, climbing so confidently to 
the Arc de Triomphe, with its groves on either side at 
the foot, and the prosperous white mansions afterwards. 
It is not our way. We English, with our ambition to 
conquer and administer the world, have neglected our 
own home; the French, with no ambition any longer 
to wander beyond their own borders, have made their 
home beautiful. The energy which we as a nation put 
into greater Britain, they have put into buildings, into 
statues, into roads. The result is that we have the 
Transvaal, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and India, 
but it is the French, foregoing such possessions and all 
their anxieties, who have the Champs-Elysees. 

The Champs-Elysees were planned and laid out by 
Marie de Medicis in 1616, and the Cours la Reine, her 
triple avenue of trees, still exists; but Napoleon is the 
father of the scheme which culminates so magnificently 
in the Arc de Triomphe. The particular children's 
paradise of Paris is in the gardens between the main 
road and the Elysee, where they bowl their hoops and 
spin their Diabolo spools, and ride on the horses of 
minute round-abouts turned by hand, and watch the 



142 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

marionettes, with the tired eyes of Alphonse Daudet, who 
sits forever, close by, in very white stone, watching them. 

Here also are the open-air cafes, the Ambassadeurs 
and the Alcazar, while on the other, the river, side are 
the Jardin de Pari^, a curiously Lutetian haunt, and Le- 
doyen's, one of the pleasantest of restaurants in summer. 

Just above this point we ought to turn to the left to 
visit the Petit Palais and cross the Pont d'Alexandre 
III., but since we are on the way let us now climb to 
the Etoile, and on to the Bois, first, however, just turn- 
ing off the Ronde Point for a moment to look at No. 3 
Avenue Matignon, where Heine (beside whose grave we 
are to stand on Montmartre) suflfered and died. 

The Place de I'Etoile might be called a kind of gilt- 
edged Seven Dials, since so many roads lead from it. 
Aristocratic Paris comes to a head here. On the right 
runs from it the Avenue de Friedland, leading to the 
Boulevard Haussmann, which meets with so inglorious 
an end at the Rue Taitbout, but is perhaps to be cut 
through to join the Boulevard Montmartre. Next on 
the right is the Avenue Hoche, running directly into 
the Pare Monceau, a terrestrial paradise to which good 
mondaines certainly go when they die. A little apparte- 
ment overlooking the Pare Monceau — there is tangible 
heaven, if you like ! 

The Pare itself is small but perfect, elegant and ex- 
pensive and V *rdant. The children (one feels) are all 
titled, the bonnes are visibly miracles of distinction and 
the babies masses of point lace ; the ladies on the chairs 



THE PARK DE LUXE 143 

must be Comtesses or Baronnes, and the air is carefully 
scented. That is the Pare Monceau. It needed but one 
detail to make it complete, and that was supplied a few 
years ago: a statue of Guy de Maupassant, consisting 
of a block of the most radiant marble to be procured, 
with the novelist as its apex, and at the base a Pari- 
sienne reading one of his stories. Other statues there 
are : of Ambroise Thomas the composer, to whom Mignon 
offers a floral tribute; of Pailleron the dramatist, at- 
tended by an actress; of Gounod surrounded by Mar- 
guerite, Juliet, Sappho and a little Love, and of Chopin 
seated at the piano, with the figures of Night and 
Harmony to inspire him. These are only a few; but 
they are typical. Every statue in the Pare has a 
damsel or two, according to his desire. It is the mode. 
There is also a minute lake, on the edge of which have 
been set up a number of Corinthian columns ; and before 
you have been seated a minute, an old woman appears 
from nowhere and demands twopence for what she 
poetically calls an armchair, the extra penny being 
added as a compliment to the two uncomfortable wires 
at the side which you had been wishing you could break 
off. Such is the Pare Monceau, the like of which exists 
not in London : the ideal pleasaunce of the wealthy. 
Through it, I might add, you may drive; but only at 
a walking pace — au pas. If the horse were to trot he 
might shake some petals off. 

At the western gate is the Musee Cernuschi, contain- 
ing a collection of oriental pottery and bronzes. I am 



144 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

no connoisseur of these beautiful things, but I advise 
all readers of this book to visit both this museum and 
the Guimet in the Place d'lena, which is a treasury of 
Japanese and Chinese art. 

Returning to the Etoile, the next avenue is the Avenue 
de Wagram, running north to the Porte d'Asnieres, 
while that which continues the Avenue des Champs- 
Elysees in a straight line west by north is the Avenue 
de la Grande Armee, running to the Porte Maillot and 
Neuilly. On the left the first avenue is the Avenue de 
Marceau, which leads to the Place de I'Alma ; the next 
the Avenue d'lena, leading to the Place d'lena; the 
next, the Avenue de Kleber, running straight to the Tro- 
cadero (into which I have never penetrated) and Passy, 
where the English live; the next, the Avenue Victor 
Hugo, which never stops ; and finally the Avenue du Bois 
de Boulogne, the most beautiful roadway in new Paris, 
along which we shall fare when we have examined the 
Arc de Triomphe. 

This trophy of success was begun, as I have said, by 
Napoleon to celebrate the victories of 1805 and 1806; 
Louis-Philippe finished it in 1836. Why Louis XVIII. 
did not destroy it or complete it as a further memorial 
of the Restoration, I cannot say. Napoleon's original 
idea was, however, tampered with by his successors, who 
allowed a bas-relief representing the Blessings of Peace 
in 1815 to be included. The sculptures are otherwise 
wholly devoted to the glorification of war. Napoleon 
and the French army; but they are not to be studied 



THE PERFECT ROAD 145 

without serious inconvenience. My advice to the con- 
scientious student would be to buy photographs or 
picture postcards, and examine them at home : the Arc 
de Triomphe is too great and splendid for such detail. 
From the top one can see all round Paris, and though 
one cannot look down on it all as from the Eiffel Tower, 
or see, beneath one, such an interesting district as from 
Notre Dame, it is yet a wonderfully interesting view. 

The Avenue du Bois de Boulogne has the finest road 
in what is, so to speak, the Marais of the present day ; 
that is to say, in the modern quarter of the aristocratic 
and wealthy. We have seen riches and rank moving 
from the Marais to the Faubourg St. Germain and from 
the Faubourg St. Germain to the Faubourg St. Honore, 
and now we find them here, and here they seem likely 
to remain. And indeed to move farther would be 
foolish, for surely there never was, and could not be, a 
more beautiful city site than this anywhere in the world 
— with its wide cool lawns on either side, and its gay 
colouring, and the Bois so near. Here too, on the heads 
of the comfortable complacent bonnes, are the most 
radiant caps you ever saw. 

The Bois de Boulogne, which takes its name from the 
little town of Boulogne to the south of it, now a suburb 
of Paris, began its life as a Paris park in the eighteen- 
fifties. Before that it was a forest of great trees, which 
indeed remained until the Franco-Prussian war, when 
they were cut down in order that they might not give 
cover to the enemy. That is why the present groves 



146 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

are all of a size. I cannot describe the Bois better than 
by saying that it is as if Hyde Park, Sandown Park, 
Kempton Park and Epping Forest were all thrown 
together between Shepherd's Bush, Acton and the river. 
London would then have something like the Bois ; and 
yet it would not be like the Bois at all, because it would 
rapidly become a desert of newspapers and empty bottles, 
whereas, although in the summer populous with picnic 
parties, the Bois is always clean and fresh. 

There are several gates to the Bois, but the principal 
ones are the Porte Maillot at the end of the Avenue de 
la Grande Armee, and the Porte Dauphine at the end 
of the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, and it is through 
the latter that the thousands of vehicles pass on their 
way to the races on happy Sundays in the spring and 
autumn. Most English people visiting the Bois merely 
drive to the races and back again; it is quite the ex- 
ception to find anyone who really knows the Bois — 
who has walked round the two lakes, Lac Inferieur, 
which feeds the cascade under which one may walk (as 
at Niagara), and Lac Superieur; who has seen a play 
in the Theatre de Verdure, or an exhibition at Bagatelle, 
the villa of the late Sir Richard Wallace, who gave the 
Champs-Elysees its drinking fountains and London the 
Wallace Collection. Bagatelle now belongs to Paris. 
Every English visitor, however, remembers the stone 
animals, dogs and deer, in the lawn of the Villa de 
Longchamp on the right as one approaches the race- 
course, and the windmill on the left, one of the several 




VlfeNUS ET L'AMOUR 

REMBRANDT 
(^Louvre) 



THE PARI-MUTUEL 147 

inoperative windmills of Paris, which marks the site of 
the old Abbey of Longchamp, founded by Isabella, the 
sister of Saint Louis. 

The Bois has two restaurants of the highest quality 
and price — Armenonville, close to the Porte Maillot, a 
favourite dining-place when the Fete de Neuilly is in 
progress, in the summer, and the Pre Catelan, near Lac 
Inferieur and close to the point where the Allee de la 
Reine-Marguerite and the Allee de Longchamp cross. 
In the summer it is quite the thing for the young 
bloods who frequent the night cafes on Montmartre to 
drive into the Bois in the early morning and drink a 
glass of milk in the Pre Catelan's dairy, perhaps bringing 
the milkmaids with them. 

The Bois has two race-courses, but it is at Longchamp 
that the principal races are run — the Grand Prix and 
the Conseil Municipal. Racing men tell me that the 
defect of the pari-mutuel system is that one cannot ar- 
range one's book, since the odds are always more or 
less of a surprise ; but to one who does not bet on horses 
anywhere but in Paris, and who views an English book- 
maker with alarm, if not positive terror, the pari-mutuel 
seems perfect in its easy and silent workings and the 
dramatic unfolding of its surprises. For first you have 
the fun of picking out your horse ; then quietly putting 
your money on him, to win or for a place; and then, 
after the race is run and your horse is a winner, you 
have those five to ten delightfully anxious minutes while 
the actuaries are working out the odds. 



148 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

An experience of my own will illustrate not only the 
method of the system but the haphazard principles on 
which a stranger's modest gambling can be done. On 
the morning of the races I had visited the Louvre with 
Mr. Dexter, the artist of this book. We had not much 
time, and were therefore proposing to look only at the 
Leonardos and the Rembrandts, which are separated 
by a considerable stretch of gallery hung with other 
pictures. On leaving the Leonardos we walked briskly 
towards the Dutch end ; Mr. Dexter, however, loitered 
here and there, and I was some distance ahead when he 
called me back to see a Holbein. It was worth going 
back for. In the afternoon at Longchamp, when the 
time came before the race to pick out the horses who 
were to have the honour of carrying my money, I noticed 
that one of them was named Holbein. Having already 
that day been pleased with a Holbein, I accepted the 
circumstance as a line of guidance, and placed a five- 
franc piece on the brave animal. He came in first, and 
being an outsider his price was 185.50. 

The Longchamp course is perfectly managed. There 
are three places where one may go — to the pesage, 
which costs twenty francs for a cavalier and ten francs 
for a dame; to the pavilion, which is half that price; 
or to the pelouse, where the people congregate, which 
costs a franc. Perfect order reigns everywhere. 

For the wanderer who has no carriage awaiting him 
and no appointments to hurry him there are two enter- 
taining things to do when the races are over on a fine 



MODERN ART 149 

Sunday afternoon. One is to cross the Seine to Suresnes 
by the adjacent bridge and sitting at the cafe that faces 
it, watch the crowd and the traffic, for this is on a main 
road from Paris to the country; or walking the other 
way, one may enjoy a similar spectacle at the Cafe du 
Sport outside the Porte Maillot and study at one's ease 
the happy French in holiday mood — the husbands with 
their wives and their two children, and the Sunday 
lovers arm in arm. 

And now we return to the Champs-Elysees in order 
to look at some pictures and admire a beautiful bridge. 
For the Avenue d'Alexandre III., as for the Pont d' Alex- 
andre III., Paris is indebted to the 1900 Exhibition. 
These are her permanent gains and very valuable they 
are. Of the two white palaces on either side of this 
green and spacious Avenue, that on the right, as we 
face the golden dome of the Invalides, is the home of 
the Salon and of various exhibitions. I say Salon, but 
Paris now has many Salons, two of which, in more or 
less amicable rivalry, occupy this building at the same 
time. In one, the Salon proper, the Salon of the old 
guard, the Royal Academicians of France, there are 
miles of paint but few experiments ; in the other, where 
the more independent spirits — the New Englishers, so 
to speak — hang their works in personal groups, there 
are fewer miles but more outrages. For outrages, how- 
ever, pure and simple (or even impure and complex), I 
recommend the Salon that is now held in the early 
spring in some of the old Exhibition buildings on the 



150 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

banks of the river, close to the Pont d 'Alexandre III. 
I have seen pictures there — nudities, in the manner of 
Aztec decorations, by the youngest French artists of 
the moment — which made one want to scream. It was 
said once that the French knew how to paint but not 
what to paint, and the English what to paint but not 
how to paint it. Since then there has been such a fusing 
of nationalities, such increased and humble appreciation 
on the part of the English painters of the best French 
methods, that one can no longer talk in that kind of 
cast-iron epigram; but it is impossible to see some of 
the crude innovating work now being done without the 
reflection that France is rapidly and successfully creating 
a school of artists who not only know what to paint 
but how to paint too. 

The Palais des Beaux-Arts, which was built for the 
collection of pictures at the Exhibition of 1900, is now 
a permanent gallery for the preservation of the various 
works of art acquired from time to time by the munici- 
pality of Paris, thus differing from the Luxembourg col- 
lections, which are national. The Palais has become a 
kind of brother of the Carnavalet, the one being the 
historical museum of Paris and the other — the Palais — 
the artistic museum of Paris. The Palais undoubtedly 
contains much that is not of the highest quality, but 
no one who is interested in modern French painting 
and drawing can afford to neglect it, while the recent 
acquisition of the Collection Dutuit, consisting chiefly of 
small but choice pictures of the Dutch masters, includ- 



TWO SCULPTORS 151 

ing a picture of Rembrandt with his dog, from his own 
hand, has added a rather necessary touch of antiquity. 

One of the special rooms is devoted to pictures of the 
opulent Felix Ziem, painter of Venetian sunsets and the 
sky at its most golden, wherever it may be found, who 
is still (1909) living in honourable state on those slopes 
of the mountain of fame which are reserved for the few 
rare spirits that become old masters before they die, 
and who presented his pictures to Paris a few years ago ; 
another room is filled with the works of the late Jean 
Jacques Henner, whose pallid nudities, emerging from 
voluptuous gloom, still look yearningly at one from the 
windows of so many Paris picture dealers. Henner, I 
must confess, is not a painter whom I greatly esteem; 
but few modern French artists were more popular in 
their day. He died in 1905, and this gift of his work 
was made by his son. Other French artists to have 
rooms of their own in the Palais are Jean Carries the 
sculptor, who died in 1894 at the age of thirty-nine, 
after an active career in the modelling of quaint and 
grotesque and realistic figures, one of the best known 
and most charming of his many works being " La Fil- 
lette au Pantin " (No. 1338 in the collection) ; and 
Jules Dalou (1838-1902), also a sculptor, a man of more 
vigour although of less charm than his neighbour in 
the Palais. That strange gift of untiring abundant 
creativeness which the French have so notably, Dalou 
also shared, his busy fingers having added thousands of 
new figures to those that already congest life, while he 



152 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

modelled also many a well-known head. I think that 
I like best his "Esquisses de Travailleurs." Nothing 
here, however, is so fascinating as Dalou's own head by 
Rodin in the Luxembourg. 

Of the picture collection proper I am saying but 
little, for it is in a fluid state, and even in the catalogue 
before me, the latest edition, there is no mention of 
several of its finest treasures: among them Manet's 
portrait of Theodore Duret, a sketch of an old peasant 
woman's hand by Madame David, a Rip Van Winkle 
by that modern master of the grotesque and Rabelaisian, 
Jean Veber, and one of Mr. Sargent's Venetian sketches 
— the racing gondoliers. For the most part it is like 
revisiting the past few Salons, except that the pictures 
are more choice and less numerous ; but one sees many 
old friends, and all the expected painters are here. It 
is of course the surprises that one remembers — the 
three Daumiers, for example, particularly " L' Amateur 
d'Estampes," reproduced opposite page 286, and "Les 
Joueurs d'Echecs," and the fine collection of the draw- 
ings of Puvis de Chavannes and Daniel Vierge. I was 
also much taken with some topographical drawings by 
Adrian Karbowski — No. 494 in the catalogue. Other 
pictures and drawings which should be seen are those by 
Cazin (a sunset), Pointelin, Steinlen (some work-girls), 
Sisley, Lebourg, and Harpignies, who exhibits water- 
colours separated in time by fifty-nine years, 1849 to 1908. 
The drawings on a whole are far better than the paintings. 

In the collection Dutuit look at Ruisdael's " Environs 



THE LITTLE DANCERS 153 

de Haarlem," Terbiirg's "La Fiancee," Hobbema's 
"LesMoulins" and a woodland scene, Pot's " Portrait of 
a Man," Van de Velde's landscape sketches, and the Rem- 
brandt. The rooms downstairs are not worth visiting. 

Among the statuary, some of which is very good, 
particularly a new unsigned and uncatalogued Joan of 
Arc, is a naked Victor Hugo holding a MS. in his 
hand ; while Fremiet of course confronts the door, this 
time with a really fine George and the Dragon, George 
having a spear worthy of the occasion, and not the short 
and useless broadsword which he brandishes on the 
English sovereign. 

On my last visit to this thinly populated gallery I 
was for some time one of three visitors, until sud- 
denly the vast spaces were humanised by the gracious 
and winsome presence of a band of Isadora Duncan's 
gay little dancers, with a kindly companion to tell them 
about the pictures, and — what interested them more 
— the statues. These tiny lissome creatures flitting 
among the cold rigid marbles I shall not soon forget. 

And so we come to the Pont d' Alexandre III., the 
bridge whose width and radiance are an ever fresh sur- 
prise and joy, and make our way to the Invalides, at 
the end of the prospect, across the great Esplanade des 
Invalides, so quiet to-day, but for a month of every year 
so noisy and variegated with round-abouts and booths. 
It is, by the way, well worth while, whenever one is 
in Paris, to find out what fair is being held. For some- 
where or other a fair is always being held. You can 



154 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

get the particulars from the invaluable Bottin or Bottin 
Mondainei which every restaurant keeps, and which is 
even exposed to public scrutiny on a table at the Gare 
du Nord, and for all I know to the contrary, at the 
other stations too. This is one of the lessons which 
might be learned from Paris by London, where you ask 
in vain for a Post Office Directory even in the General 
Post OfSce. Bottin, who knows all, will give you the 
time and place of every fair. The best is the Fete de 
Neuilly, which is held in the summer, just outside the 
Porte Maillot, but all the arrondissements have their 
own. They are crowded scenes of noisy life ; but they 
are amusing too, and their popularity shows you how 
juvenile is the Frenchman's heart. 

One should enter the Invalides from the great Place 
and round off the inspection of the Musee de I'Armee 
by a visit to Napoleon's tomb; that, at least, is the 
symmetrical order. The Hotel des Invalides proper, 
which set the fashion in military hospitals, was built by 
Louis XIV., who may be seen on his horse in bas-relief 
on the principal fa9ade. The building once sheltered 
and tended 7,000 wounded soldiers ; but there are now 
only fifty. From its original function as a military hospi- 
tal for any kind of disablement it has dwindled to a home 
for a few incurables; while the greater portion of the 
building is now given up to collections and to civic ofiices. 
There could be no greater contrast than that between 
the imposing architecture of the main structure and the 
charming domestic fa9ade in the Boulevard des Invalides, 




LES PELERINS D'EMMAUS 

REMBRANDT 

(^Louvre) 



A PAGEANT OF ARMS 155 

which is one of the pleasantest of the old Paris buildings 
and has some of the simplicity of an English almshouse. 

It is not until we enter the great Court of Honour 
that we catch sight of Napoleon, whose figure dominates 
the opposite wall. Thereafter one thinks of little else. 
Louis XIV. disappears. 

Passing some dingy frescoes which the weather has 
treated vilely, we enter the Musee Historique on the 
left — unless one has an overwhelming passion for 
artillery armour and the weapons of savages, in which 
case one turns to the right. I mention the alternative 
because there is far too much to see on one visit, and it 
is well to concentrate on the more interesting. For me 
guns and armour and the weapons of savages are with- 
out any magic while there are to be seen such human 
relics as have been brought together in the Musee His- 
torique on the opposite side of the Court. The whole 
place, by the way, is a model for the Carnavalet, in that 
everything is precisely and clearly labelled. This, since 
it is a favourite resort of simple folk — soldiers and their 
parents and sweethearts — is a thoughtful provision. 

The Musee Historique has at every turn something 
profoundly interesting, and incidentally it tells some- 
thing of the men from whom numbers of Paris streets 
take their names ; but the real and poignant interest is 
Napoleon. The Longwood room is to me too painful. 
The project of the admirable administrator has been to 
illustrate the whole pageant of French arms; but the 
Man of Destiny quickly becomes all-powerful, and one 



156 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

finds oneself looking only for signs and tokens of his 
personality. So it should be, under the shadow of the 
Dome which covers his ashes. I would personally go 
farther and collect at the Invalides all the Napoleonic 
relics that one now must visit so many places to see — 
the Carnavalet Fontainebleau, the Musee Grevin, our 
own United Service Museum in Whitehall (as if we had 
the right to a single article from St. Helena !), Madame 
Tussaud's, and Versailles. There is even a room at the 
Arts Decoratif s devoted nominally to Napoleon, but it has 
few articles of personal interest and none of any intimacy 
— merely splendid costumes for occasions and ceremonials 
of State, with a few of Josephine's lace caps among them. 
Its purpose is to illustrate the Empire rather than the 
Emperor, but the Invalides should have what there is. 
At the Invalides you may, I suppose, see in three or 
four rooms more Napoleonic relics of a personal charac- 
ter than anywhere else. In Whitehall is the chair he died 
in ; but here is his garden-seat from St. Helena, one bar 
of which was removed to allow him as he sat to pass 
his arm through and be more at his ease as he looked 
out to the ocean that was to do nothing for him. At 
Whitehall is the skeleton of his horse Marengo; here 
is the saddle. Here are his grey redingote and more 
than one of his hats. Among the relics in the special 
Napoleonic rooms those of his triumph and his fall are 
mixed. Here is the bullet that wounded him at Ratis- 
bon : here are his telescopes and his maps, his travelling 
desks and his pistols ; here are the toys of the little Duke 



THE MIGHTY DEAD 157 

of Reichstadt ; here is the walking stick on which Napo- 
leon leaned at St. Helena, his dressing-gown, his bed, his 
armchair and his death-mask. Here are the railings of 
the tomb at St. Helena, and a case of leaves and stones 
and pieces of wood and other natural surroundings of the 
same spot. Here also is the pall that covered his coffin 
on the way to its final burial under the Dome close by. 

It is a fitting end to the study of these storied corri- 
dors to pass to the tomb of the protagonist of the drama 
we have been contemplating. The Emperor's remains 
were brought to Paris in 1840, nineteen years after his 
death at St. Helena. Thackeray in his Second Funeral 
of Napoleon wrote a vivid, although to my mind hateful, 
description of the ceremonial: a piece of complacent 
flippancy, marked by the worst kind of French irrever- 
ence, which shows him in his least admirable mood, 
particularly when he is pleased to be amusing over .the 
difference between the features of the Emperor dead 
and living. None the less it is an absorbing narrative. 

One looks down upon the sarcophagus, which lies in 
a marble well. It is simple, solemn and severe, and to 
a few persons, not Titmarshes, inexpressibly melancholy. 
The Emperor's words from his will, " Je desire que mes 
cendres reposent sur les bords de la Seine, au milieu de 
ce peuple fran9ais que j'ai tant aime," are placed at the 
entrance to the crypt. He had not the Invalides in 
mind when he wrote them; but one feels that the 
Invalides is as right a spot for him as any in this land 
of short memories and light mockeries. 



CHAPTER X 

THE BOULEVARD ST. GERMAIN AND ITS TRIBUTARIES 

An Aristocratic Quarter — Adrienne Lecouvreur — A Grisly Museum 

— A Changeless City — The Pasteur Institute — ■ The Golden Key 

— The Stoppeur — Sterne — The Beaux Arts — A Wilderness of 
Copies — Voltaire Clad and Naked — The Mint — An Inquisitive 
Visitor — Bad Money. 

FROM the Invalides the Boulevard St. Germain, 
the west to east highway of the Surrey side of 
Paris, is easily gained ; but it is not in itself very in- 
teresting. The interesting streets either cross it or run 
more or less parallel with it, such as the old and wind- 
ing Rue de Grenelle, which we come to at once, the 
home of the Parisian aristocracy after its removal from 
the Marais. The houses are little changed : merely 
the tenants ; and certain Embassies are now here. No. 
18 was once the Hotel de Beauharnais, the home of the 
fair Josephine; at the Russian Embassy, No. 79, the 
Duchesse d'Estrees lived. In an outhouse at No. 115 
was buried in unconsecrated ground Adrienne Lecouv- 
reur, the tragedienne who made tragedy, the beloved of 
Marechal Saxe. Scribe's drama has made her story 
known — how her heart was too much for her, and 

158 



OLD CURIOSITY SHOPS 159 

how Christian burial was refused her by a Christian 
priest. 

The Rue St. Dominique, parallel with the Rue de 
Grenelle nearer the river, is equally old and august. 
At No. 13 lived Madame de Genlis, the monitress of 
French youth. Still nearer the river runs the long Rue 
de rUniversite, which also has an illustrious past and 
a picturesque present, some great French noble having 
built nearly every house. 

One of the first old streets to cross the Boulevard St. 
Germain is the Rue du Bac, a roadway made when the 
Palace of the Tuileries was building, to convey materials 
from Vaugiraud to the bac (or ferry boat) which crossed 
the Seine where the Pont Royal now stands. This 
street also is full of ancient palaces and convents. 
Chateaubriand died at 118-120. At 128 is the Semi- 
naires des Missions Etrangeres, with a terrible little 
museum called the Chambre des Martyrs, very French 
in character, displaying instruments of torture which 
have been used upon missionaries in China and other 
countries inimical (like poor Adrienne's priest) to Christi- 
anity. The Rue des Saints-Peres resembles the Rue du 
Bac, but is more attractive to the loiterer because it 
has perhaps the greatest number of old curiosity shops 
of any street in Paris. They touch each other: per- 
haps they take in each other's dusting. I never saw 
a customer enter; but that of course means nothinsr. 
One might be sure of finding a case made of peau de 
chagrin here and be equally sure that Balzac had trodden 



160 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

this pavement before you. You will see, however, 
nothing or very little that is beautiful, because Paris 
does not care much for sheer beauty. 

The Rue des Saints-Peres runs upwards into the Rue 
de Sevres, where old convents cluster and the Bon 
Marche raises its successful modern bulk. It was in the 
Abbaye-aux-Bois, once at the corner of the Rue de 
Sevres and the Rue de la Chaise but now buried beneath 
a gigantic block of new flats, that Madame Recamier 
lived from 1814 until her death in 1849, visited latterly 
every day by the faithful Chateaubriand. M. Georges 
Cain has a charming chapter on this friendship and its 
scene in his Promenades dans Paris, of which an English 
translation, entitled Walks in Paris, has recently been 
published. 

Returning to the Boulevard St. Germain, which we 
leave as often as we touch it, I remember that, on the 
south side, between the Invalides end and the statue of 
the inventor of the semaphore, used to be a little shop 
devoted to the sale of trophfes of Joan of Arc. And 
since it used to be there, it follows that it is there still, for 
nothing in Paris ever changes. One of the great charms 
of Paris is that it is always the same. I can think of 
hardly any shop that has changed in the last ten years. 
This means, I suppose, that the French rarely die. 
How can they, disliking as they do to leave Paris ^ It 
is the English and the Scotch, born to forsake their 
homes and live uncomfortably foreign lives, who die. 

If one is interested in seeing the Pasteur Institute, 




5 z 

h < 

x; 




THE COUR DU DRAGON 161 

now is the time, for it is not far from the Rue de Sevres, 
in the Rue Falguiere, named after Falguiere, the sculptor 
of the memorial to Pasteur in the Place Breteuil : one 
of the best examples of recent Paris statuary, with a 
charming shepherd boy playing his pipe to his flock on 
one side of the pediment, and grimmer scenes of disease 
on the others. This monument, however, is some dis- 
tance from the Institute, the Place Breteuil being the 
first carrefour in that vast and endless avenue which 
leads southwards from Napoleon's tomb. The Institute 
itself has a spirited statue of Jupille the shepherd, one 
of its first patients, in his struggle with the wolf that 
bit him. Pasteur's tomb is here, but I have not seen 
it, as I arrived on the wrong day. 

One of the most attractive of the Boulevard St. 
Germain's byways is entered just round the corner of 
the Rue de Rennes. This is the Cour du Dragon, 
which is not only a relic of old Paris, but old Paris is 
still visible hard at work in it. The Cour du Dragon 
is a narrow court gained by an archway over which a 
red dragon perches, holding up the balcony with his 
vigorous pinions. It was the Hotel Taranne in the 
reigns of Charles VI. and VII. and Louis XI. ; later 
it became a famous riding and fencing school. It is 
now a cheerful nest of artisans — coppersmiths, lock- 
smiths, coal merchants and the like, who fill it with 
brisk hammerings, while at the windows above, with 
their green shutters, the songs of caged birds mingle in 
the symphony! 



162 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

As in all Parisian streets or courts where signs are 
hung, the golden key is prominent. (There is one in 
Mr. Dexter's picture of the Rue de I'Hotel de Ville.) 
What the proportion of locksmiths is to the population 
of Paris I cannot say; but their pretty symbol is to be 
seen everywhere. The reason of their numbers is not 
very mysterious when we recollect that practically every- 
one that one meets in this city, and certainly all the 
people of the middling and working classes, live in flats, 
and all want keys. The streets and streets of the small 
houses with which East London is covered are unknown 
in Paris, where every fa9ade is but the mask which hides 
vast tenements packed with families. No wonder then 
that the serrurier is so busy. 

Another sign which probably puzzles many English 
people is that of the stoppeur. Bellows' dictionary does 
not recognise the word. What is a stoppeur and what 
does he stop ? I discovered the answer in the most 
practical way possible; for a Frenchman, in a crowd, 
helped me to it by pushing his lighted cigar into my 
back and burning a hole in it, right in the middle of 
the coat, where a patch would necessarily show. I was 
in despair until the femme de chambre reassured me. 
It was nothing, she said : all that was needed was a stop- 
peur. She would take the coat herself. It seems that the 
stoppeur's craft is that of mending holes so deftly that 
you would not know there had been any. He ascertains 
the pattern by means of a magnifying glass, and then 
extracts threads from some part of the garment that 



FLANDRIN AND DELACROIX 163 

does not show and weaves them in. I paid three francs 
and have been looking for the injured spot ever since, 
but cannot find it. It is a modern miracle. 

Diagonally opposite the Court of the Dragon is the 
Church of St. Germain — not the St. Germain who owns 
the church at the east end of the Louvre, but St. Ger- 
main du Pre, a lesser luminary. It has no particular 
beauty, but a number of frescoes by Flandrin, the pupil 
of Ingres, give it a cachet. Flandrin's bust is to be ob- 
served on the north wall. The frescoes cannot be seen 
except under very favourable conditions, and therefore 
for me the greatness of Flandrin has to be sought in his 
drawings at the Luxembourg and the Louvre — suffi- 
cient proof of his exquisite hand. 

Before descending the Rue Buonaparte to the river, 
let us ascend it to see the great church of St. Sulpice 
and its paintings by Delacroix in the Chapel of the 
Holy Angels. Under the Convention St. Sulpice was 
the Temple of Victory, and here General Buonaparte 
was feasted in 1799. The church is famous for its 
music and an organ second only to that of St. Eustache. 
And now let us descend the Rue Buonaparte to the 
quais, where several buildings await us, beginning with 
the Beaux- Arts at the foot of the street; but first the 
Rue Jacob, which bisects the Rue Buonaparte, should 
be looked at, for it has had many illustrious inhabitants, 
including our own Laurence Sterne, who lodged here, 
at No. 46, in the Hotel of his friend Madame Ram- 
bouillet (of the easy manners) when he was studying the 



164 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

French for A Sentimental Journey. It was here per- 
haps that he penned the famous opening sentence: 
" ' They order,' said I, ' these things better in France ' " 
— which no other writer on Paris has succeeded in for- 
getting. At No. 20 Hved Adrienne Lecouvreur, and 
hither Voltaire must often have come, for he greatly ad- 
mired her. At No. 7 is a fine old staircase and an old 
well in the court. 

The Palais des Beaux-Arts, where the Royal Academy 
Schools of Paris are situated, is an unexhilarating build- 
ing containing a great number of unexciting paintings. 
Indeed, I think that no public edifice of Paris is so 
dreary : within and without one has a sense, not exactly 
of decay, but certainly of neglect. This is not the less 
odd when one thinks of the purpose of the institution, 
which is to foster the arts, and when one thinks also 
of the spotless perfection in which the Petit Palais, the 
latest of the Parisian picture galleries, is maintained. 
The spirit, however, is willing, if the flesh is weak, for 
in the first and second courts are examples of the best 
French architecture, and a bust of Jean Goujon is let 
into the wall of the Musee des Antiques. The building 
contains a number of casts of the best sculptures and 
an amphitheatre with Delaroche's pageant of painters 
on the hemicycle and Ingres' Victory of Romulus over 
the Sabines opposite it ; but there is not always enough 
light to see either well. For the best view of Delaroche's 
great work one must go upstairs to the Gallery. The 
library also is upstairs, with many thousand of valuable 



SINCEREST FLATTERY 165 

works on' art and a collection of drawings by the masters, 
access to which is made easy to genuine students. 

By returning to the first court we come to the Musee 
de la Renaissance, which now occupies an old chapel of 
the Couvent des Petits-Augustins, on the site of which 
the Palais de Beaux-Arts was built. Here are more 
casts and copies, and there are still more in the adjoin- 
ing Cour du Murier, where stands the memorial of 
Henri Regnault, the painter, and the students who 
died with him during the defence of Paris in 1870-71. 

We then enter the Salle de Melpomene, so called 
from the dominating cast of the Melpomene at the 
Louvre, and are straightway among what seem at the 
first glance to be old friends from all the best galleries 
of the world but too quickly are revealed as counterfeits. 
Rembrandt's School of Anatomy and the Syndics, our 
own National Gallery Correggio, the Dresden Raphael, 
the Wallace Collection Velasquez (the Lady with a Fan), 
one of Hals' groups of arquebusiers, and Paul Potter's 
Bull: all are here, together with countless others, all 
the work of Beaux-Arts students, and some exceedingly 
good, but also (like most copies) exceedingly depressing. 

In other rooms almost pitch dark are modelled studies 
of expression and paintings which have won the Grand 
Prix of Rome during the past two hundred years. It 
is odd to notice how few names one recognises : it is as 
though, like the Newdigate, this prize were an end in 
itself. 

Having contemplated the statue of Voltaire in his 



166 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

robes outside the Institut, the next building of import- 
ance after the Beaux Arts, you may, if you so desire, 
gaze upon the same philosopher in a state of nature by 
entering the Institut itself, and ascending to its Bib- 
liotheque. There he sits, the skinny cynic, among the 
books which he wrote and the books which he read and 
the books which would not have been written but for 
him. I was glad to see him thus, for it showed me 
where our own Arouet, Mr. Bernard Shaw, found his 
inspiration when he too subjected recently his economi- 
cal frame to the maker of portraits. Mr. Shaw sat, how- 
ever, only to a photographer (although a very good 
one, Mr. Coburn) ; when he visited Rodin it was for the 
head, a replica of which may be seen at the Luxembourg. 
Speaking of heads, the Institut is a wilderness of them : 
heads line the stairs; heads line the walls not only of 
its own Bibliotheque but of the Bibliotheque de Mazarin, 
which also is here, a haven for every student that cares 
to seek it: heads of the great Frenchmen of all time 
and of the Caesars too. 

The Pont des Arts, which leads direct from the old 
Louvre to the Institut (a connection, if ever, no longer 
of any importance), is for foot passengers only. One is 
therefore more at ease there in observing the river than 
on the noisy bridge of stone. But it is inexcusably ugly, 
and leaves one continually wondering what Napoleon 
was about to allow it to be built — and of iron too — in 
his day of good taste. Looking up stream, the Pont 
Neuf is close by with the thin green end of the Cite's 




LA VIERGE AU DONATEUR 

J. VAN EYCK 

{Louvre) 



THE MINT 167 

wedge protruding under it and, in winter, Henri IV. 
riding proudly above. In summer, as Mr. Dexter's 
drawing shows, he is hidden by leaves. A basin has 
been constructed at this point from which the tide is 
excluded, and here are washing houses and swimming 
baths; for Parisians, having a river, use it. 

The Hotel des Monnaies, close by the Beaux Arts, is 
another surprise. One would expect in such a country 
as France, with its meticulously exact control of its 
public offices, that its Mint, the institution in which its 
money was made, would be a miracle of precision and 
efficiency. Efficiency it may have ; but its proceedings 
are casual beyond belief : the workmen in the furnaces 
loaf and smoke and stare at the visitors and exchange 
comments on them; the floors are cluttered up with 
lumber; the walls are dirty; the doors do not fit. A 
very considerable amount of work seems to be accom- 
plished — there are machines constantly in movement 
which turn out scores of coins a minute, not only for 
France but for her few and dispiriting colonies and 
for other countries; and yet the feeling which one 
has is that France here is noticeably below herself. 

I was shown around by a very charming attendant, 
who handled the new coins as though he loved them 
and took precisely that pride in the place that the 
Government seems to lack. The design on the French 
franc, although it ought to be cut, I think, a little 
deeper, a little more boldly, is very attractive, both 
obverse and reverse, and it is a pleasant sight to see the 



168 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

bright creatures tumbling out of the machine as fast as 
one can count. Pleasanter still is it to the frail human 
eye when the same process is repeated with golden 
Louis' — basketfuls of which stand negligently about 
as though it were the cave of the Forty Thieves. 

An Englishman's perhaps indiscreet questions as to 
what precautions were taken to prevent leakage amused 
the guide beyond all reason. "It is impossible," he 
said ; " the coins are weighed. They must correspond 
to the prescribed weight." " But who," my countryman 
went on, in the relentless English way, "checks the 
weigher?" "Another," said the guide. "But a time 
must come," continued the Briton, who probably had a 
business of his own and had suffered, " when there is no 
one left to check — when the last man of all is officiat- 
ing : how then ? " Our guide laughed very happily, and 
repeated that there were no thieves there ; and I dare- 
say he is right. "Perhaps," I said, to the English 
inquisitor, " perhaps, like assistants in sweet shops, they 
are allowed at first to help themselves so much that they 
acquire a disgust for money." He looked at me with 
eyes of stone. I think he had Scotch blood. "Per- 
haps," he said at last. 

My own contribution to the guide's entertainment 
was the production, before a machine that was shooting 
five-franc pieces into a bowl at the rate of one a second, 
of the four bad (demonetise) coins of the same value 
which had been forced upon me during the few days I 
had then been in Paris. They gave immense delight. 



DEMONETISE 169 

Several rhinters (or whatever they are called) stopped 
working in order to join in the inspection. It was the 
general opinion that I had been badly treated : although, 
of course, I ought to have known. Three of the coins 
were simply those of other nations no longer current in 
France, and for them I could get from two to three 
francs each at an exchange. Unless, of course, a man 
of the world put in, I liked to sell them to a waiter, and 
then I should get perhaps a slightly better price. " Be 
careful, however," said he, "that he does not give them 
back to you in the next change." The fourth coin 
was frankly base metal and ought not to have taken in 
a child. That, by the way, was given to me at a Post 
Office, the one under the Bourse, and I find that Post 
Offices are notorious for this habit with foreigners. 
The minters generally agreed that it was a scandal, 
but they did so without heat — bearing indeed this mis- 
fortune (not their own) very much as their countryman 
La Rochefoucauld had observed men to do. 

After the coins we saw the medal-stampers at work, 
each seated in a little hole in the ground before his 
press. The French have a natural gift for the designing 
of medals, and they are interested in them as souvenirs 
not only of public but of private events — such as silver 
weddings, birthdays and other anniversaries. Upstairs 
there is a collection of medals by the best designers — 
such as Rotz, Patz, Carial, Chaplain, Dupuis, Dupre 
— many of them charming. Here also are collections of 
the world's coinage and of historical French medals. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE LATIN QUARTER 

Old Prints — Procope, Tortoni, and Le Pere Lunette — The Luxem- 
bourg Palace — Rodin — Modern Paintings — A Sinister Crypt — 
A Garden of Sculpture — The Students of the Latin Quarter — 
The Sorbonne — - A Beautiful Museum — The Cluny's Treasures — 
Marat and Danton — Old Streets and Dirty — The River Bievre — 
Inspired Topography — Dante in Paris. 

THE high road from the centre of Paris to the 
Latin Quarter is across the Pont du Carrousel 
and up the narrow Rue Mazarin, which skirts the 
Institut; and the Rue Mazarin we may now take if 
only for its old print shops, not the least interesting 
department of which is the portfolios containing 
students' sketches, some of them very good. (I might 
equally have said some of them very bad.) We have 
seen on the Quai des Celestins the site of one of 
Moliere's theatres: here, at Nos. 12-14, is the house in 
which he established his first theatre, on the last day of 
1643. The Rue Mazarin runs into the Rue de I'An- 
cienne Comedie Fran9aise, at No. 14 in which was that 
theatre, whose successor stands at the foot of the Rue 
Richelieu. 

Crossing the Boulevard St. Germain we climb what 
170 



PROCOPE AND TORTONI 171 

is now the Rue de I'Odeon to the Place and theatre 
of that name, with the statue of Augier the dramatist 
before it. The Place de I'Odeon demands some atten- 
tion, for at No. 1, now the Cafe Voltaire, was once the 
famous Cafe Procope, very significant in the eighteenth 
century, the resort of Voltaire and the Encyclopsedists, 
and later of the Revolutionaries. Camille Desmoulins 
indeed made it his home. You may see within port- 
raits of these old famous habitues. Procopio, a Sicilian 
who founded his establishment for the shelter of poor 
actors and students (whom Paris then loathed in private 
life), was the father of all the Paris cafes. 

The Cafe Procope was to men of intellect what some 
few years later Tortoni's was to men of fashion. The 
Cafe Tortoni was in the Boulevard des Italiens. Let 
Captain Gronow tell its history : " About the commence- 
ment of the present [nineteenth] century, Tortoni's, the 
centre of pleasure, gallantry and entertainment, was 
opened by a Neapolitan, who came to Paris to supply 
the Parisians with good ice. The founder of this cele- 
brated cafe was by name Veloni, an Italian, whose father 
lived with Napoleon from the period he invaded Italy, 
when First Consul, down to his fall. Young Veloni 
brought with him his friend Tortoni, an industrious and 
intelligent man. Veloni died of an affection of the 
lungs, shortly after the cafe was opened, and left the 
business to Tortoni ; who, by dint of care, economy and 
perseverance, made his cafe renowned all over Europe. 
Towards the end of the first Empire, and during the 



172 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

return of the Bourbons, and Louis Philippe's reign, this 
establishment was so much in vogue that it was difficult 
to get an ice there; after the opera and theatres were 
over, the Boulevards were literally choked up by the 
carriages of the great people of the court and the Fau- 
bourg St. Germain bringing guests to Tortoni's. 

"In those days clubs did not exist in Paris, conse- 
quently the gay world met there. The Duchess of 
Berri, with her suite, came nearly every night incognito ; 
the most beautiful women Paris could boast of, old 
maids, dowagers, and old and young men, pouring out 
their sentimental twaddle, and holding up to scorn their 
betters, congregated here. In fact, Tortoni's became 
a sort of club for fashionable people ; the saloons were 
completely monopolised by them, and became the ren- 
dezvous of all that was gay, and I regret to add, immoral. 

" Gunter, the eldest son of the founder of the house 
in Berkeley Square, arrived in Paris about this period, 
to learn the art of making ice; for prior to the peace, 
our London ices and creams were acknowledged, by the 
English as well as foreigners, to be detestable. In the 
early part of the day, Tortoni's became the rendezvous 
of duellists and retired officers, who congregated in 
g-reat numbers to breakfast; which consisted of cold 
pates, game, fowl, fish, eggs, broiled kidneys, iced 
champagne, and liqueurs from every part of the globe. 

"Though Tortoni succeeded in amassing a large 
fortune, he suddenly became morose, and showed evi- 
dent signs of insanity : in fact, he was the most unhappy 



THE GREAT RESTAURATEURS 173 

man oa earth. On going to bed one night, he said to 
the lady who superintended the management of his cafe, 
'It is time for me to have done with the world.' The 
lady thought lightly of what he said, but upon quitting 
her apartment on the following morning, she was told 
by one of the waiters that Tortoni had hanged himself." 

Someone should write a book — but perhaps it has 
been done — on the great restaurateurs. Paris would, 
of course, provide the lion's share ; but there would be 
plenty of material to collect in other capitals. The life of 
our own Nicol of the Cafe Royal, for example, would not 
be without interest ; and what of Sherry and Delmonico } 

While on the subject of meeting-places of remark- 
able persons, I might say that a latter-day resort of 
intellectuals who have allowed the world and its tempta- 
tions to be too much for them is not so very far away 
from us at this point — the cabaret of Le Pere Lunette at 
No. 4 Rue des Anglais. I do not say that this is a 
modern Procope, but it has some of the same character- 
istics : men of genius have met here and illustrious por- 
traits are on the wall ; but they are not frescoes such as 
could be included in this book, for old Father Spectacles 
puts satire before propriety. 

In the colonnade round the Odeon theatre are book- 
stalls, chiefly offering new books at very low rates. We 
emerge on the south side in the Rue Vaugiraud, with 
the Medicis fountain of the Luxembourg just across the 
road. The Luxembourg Palace was built by Marie de 
Medicis, the widow of Henri IV., and it fulfilled the 



174 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

functions of a palace until the Revolution, when, prisons 
being more important than palaces, it became a prison. 
Among those conveyed hither were the Vicomte de 
Beauharnais and his wife Josephine, who was destined 
one day to be anything but a prisoner. After the 
Revolution the Luxembourg became the Palace of the 
Directoire and then the Palace of the First Consul. In 
1800 Napoleon moved to the Tuileries, and a little while 
afterwards he established the Senate here, and here it is 
still. I cannot describe the Palace, for I have never 
been in it, but the Musee I know well. 

The Luxembourg galleries are dedicated to modern 
art. They have nothing earlier than the nineteenth 
century, and may be said to carry on the history of 
French painting from the point where it is left in Room 
VIII. at the Louvre, while little is quite so naodern as 
the permanent portion of the Petit Palais. One plunges 
from the street directly into a hall of very white sculp- 
ture, which for the moment affects the sight almost like 
the beating wings of gulls. The difference between 
French and English sculpture, which is largely the differ- 
ence between nakedness and nudity, literally assaults 
the eye for the moment; and then the more beautiful 
work quietly begins to assert itself — Rodin's " Pensee," 
on the left, holding the attention first and gently sooth- 
ing the bewildered vision. Rodin indeed dominates this 
room, for here are not only his " Pensee " (the " Penseur " 
is not so very far away, two hundred yards or so, at the 
Pantheon), but his "John the Baptist," gaunt and 




LE BAISER 

RODIN 

{L-i(xe]>ibourg) 



RODIN 175 

urgent in the wilderness (with Dubois' "John the 
Baptist as a boy " near by, to show from what material 
prophets are evolved) and the exquisite "Dana'ides" 
and the "Age d'Arain," and the giant heads of Hugo 
and Rochefort, and the little delicate sensitive Don 
Quixotic head of Dalou the sculptor, which has just 
been added, and the George Wyndham and the G.B.S. 
and other recent portraits; while through the doorway 
to the next room one sees the "Baiser," immense and 
passionate. I reproduce here the "Baiser" and the 
"Pensee," opposite page 46. 

Other work here that one recalls is the charming 
group by Fremiet, "Pan and the Bear Cubs," Dubois' 
fascinating "Florentine Singing-boy of the Fifteenth 
Century," a peasant by Dalou, a great Dane and puppies 
by Le Courtier, and the very beautiful head in the 
doorway to Room I. — "Femme de Marin," by Cazin 
the painter. But other visitors, other tastes, of course. 

Before entering Room I. there are two small rooms on 
the right of the sculpture gallery which should be en- 
tered, one given up to the more famous Impressionists 
and one to foreign work. The chief Impressionists are 
Degas, Renoir, Monet, Sisley and their companions, al- 
most all of whom seem to me to have painted better else- 
where than here. Monet's "Yachts in the River" rise 
before me as I write with the warm sun upon them, and 
I still see in the mind's eye the torso of a young woman 
by Legros: but this room always depresses me, the 
effect largely I believe of the antipathetic Renoir. The 



176 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

other room has a floating population. Recently the 
painters have been Belgian: but at another time they 
may be German or English, when the Belgians will re- 
cede to the cellars or be lent to provincial galleries. 

The pictures in the Luxembourg are many, but the 
arresting hand is too seldom extended. Cleverness, 
the bane of French art, dominates. In the first room 
Rodin's "Baiser" is greater than any painting; but 
Harpignies' " Lever de Lune " is here, and here also is 
one of Pointelin's sombre desolate moorlands. In a 
glass case some delicate bowls by Dammouse are worth 
attention; but I think his work at the Arts Decoratifs 
at the Louvre is better. The second room is notable 
for the Fantin-Latour drawings in the middle, with 
others by Flandrin and Meissonier ; the third for Caro- 
lus-Duran's " Vieux Lithographe " and a case of draw- 
ings by modern black and white masters, including 
Legros and Steinlen ; here also is another Pointelin. In 
Room rV. is a coast scene — " Les Falaises de Sotteville, 
in a lovely evening light, by Bouland, which falls short of 
perfection but is very grateful to the eyes. In Room 
V. is a portrait group by Fantin-Latour recalling the 
"Hommage a Delacroix," which we saw in the Collec- 
tion Moreau, but less interesting. The studio is that of 
Manet at Batignolles. Here also is a beautiful snow 
scene by Cazin — an oasis indeed. In Room VI. we 
find Cazin again with "Ishmael," and two sweet and 
misty Carrieres, a powerful if hard Legros, Carolus- 
Duran's portrait of the ruddy Papa Fran9ais the painter. 



LUXEMBOURG PICTURES 177 

Blanche's vivid group of the Thaulow family, with the 
gigantic Fritz bringing the strength of a bull-fighter 
to the execution of one of his tender landscapes, and 
finally Whistler's portrait of his mother, which I repro- 
duce opposite page 294 — one of the most restful and 
gentlest deeds of his restless, irritable life. 

Room VII. is remarkable for Rodin's " Bellona " and 
Tissot's curious exercises in the genre of W. P. Frith — 
the story of the Prodigal Son. But the picture which 
I remember most clearly and with most pleasure is 
Victor Mottez's "Portrait of Madame M.," which has a 
deep quiet beauty that is very rare in this gallery. In 
the same room, placed opposite each other, although 
probably not with any conscious ironical intention, are 
a large scene in the Franco-Prussian War by De Neu- 
ville, and Carriere's " Christ on the Cross." In Room 

VIII. are a number of meretricious Moreaus, Caro-Del- 
valle's light and, to me, oddly attractive, group, "Ma 
Femme et ses Soeurs," and the portrait of Mile. Moreno 
of the Comedie Fran9aise by Granie, which is repro- 
duced opposite page 308, a picture with fascination 
rather than genius. 

In the doorway between Room VIII. and Room IX. 
hangs a small water-colour by Harpignies, but in Room 

IX. itself is nothing that I can recollect. Room X. has 
Picard's charming "Femme qui passe," Harpignies' 
Coliseum, very like a Moreau Corot and a Flandrin; 
and in Room XI. are Bastien Lepage's " Portrait of M. 
Franck," Le Sidaner's "Dessert," Vollon's "Port of 



178 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

Antwerp," very beautiful, and Carolus-Duran's famous 
portrait of "Madame G. E. and her children." 

On leaving the Musee it is worth while to take a 
few steps more to the left, for they bring us to another 
sinister souvenir of the Reign of Terror — to St. Joseph 
des Carmes, the Chapel of the Carmelite monastery in 
which, in September, 1792, the Abbe Sicard and other 
priests who had refused to take the oath of the Con- 
stitution were imprisoned and massacred, as described 
by Carlyle in Book I., Chapters IV. and V. of "The 
Guillotine," with the assistance of the narrative of one 
of the survivors, Mon Agonie de Trent-Huit Heures, 
by Jourgniac Saint-Meard. In the crypt one is shown 
not only the tombs but traces of the massacre. 

A walk in the Luxembourg gardens would, if one 
had been nowhere else, quickly satisfy the stranger as 
to the interest of the French in the more remarkable 
children of their country. In these gardens alone are 
statues, among many others, in honour of Chopin, 
Watteau, Delacroix, Sainte Beuve, Le Play the econ- 
omist, Fabre the poet, Georges Sand, Henri Murger, the 
novelist of the adjacent Latin Quarter, and Theodore 
de Banville, the modern maker of ballades and prime 
instigator of some of the most charming work in French 
form by Mr. Lang and Mr. Dobson and W. E. Henley. 
There are countless other statues of mythological and 
allegorical figures, some of them very striking. One 
of the most interesting of all is the "Marchand de 
Masques " by Astruc, among the masks offered for sale 
being those of Corot, Dumas, Berlioz and Balzac. 



THE SOUTHERN HEIGHTS 179 

The LjLixembourg gardens lead to the Avenue de 
FObservatoire, a broad and verdant pleasaunce with a 
noble fountain at the head, in the midst of which an 
armillary sphere is held up by four undraped female 
figures representing the four quarters of the globe, at 
whom a circle of tortoises spout water from the surface of 
the basin. Beneath the upholders of the sphere are eight 
spirited sea horses by Fremiet, the sculptor who de- 
signed " Pan and the Bear Cubs " in the Luxembourg. 

A few yards to the west of this fountain is one of 
the simplest and most satisfying of Parisian sculptured 
memorials, at the corner of the Rue d'Assas and the 
Boulevard de FObservatoire — the bas-relief on the Tar- 
nier maternity hospital, representing the benevolent 
Tarnier in his merciful work. 

Let us now descend the Boulevard St. Michel to the 
Sorbonne, which is the heart of the Latin Quarter (or 
perhaps the brain would be the better word), disregard- 
ing for the moment the Pantheon, and turning our backs 
on the Observatoire and the Lion de Belfort, in the 
streets around which, every September, the noisiest of 
the Parisian fairs rages, and on the Bal Bullier, where the 
shop assistants of this neighbourhood grasp each other 
in the dance every Thursday and Sunday night. Not 
that this high Southern district of Paris is not interest- 
ing; but it is far less interesting than certain parts 
nearer the Seine, and this book may not be too long. 

The Sorbonne is not exciting, but it is not unamus- 
ing to watch young France gaining knowledge. I have 
called it the heart of the Latin Quarter, although when 



180 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

one thinks of the necessitous, irresponsible youthful 
populace of these slopes, it is rather in a studio than in 
a lecture centre that one would fix its cardiac energy. 
That, however, is the fault of Du Maurier and Murger ; 
for I suppose that for every artist that the Latin Quarter 
fosters it has scores of other students. But here I am 
in unknown territory. This book, which describes (as 
I warned you) Paris wholly from without, is never so 
external as among the young bloods who are to be met 
at night in the Cafe Harcourt, or who dance at the 
annual ball of the Quatz Arts, or plunge themselves into 
congenial riots when unpopular professors mount the 
platform. I know them not ; I merely rejoice in their 
existence, admire their long hair and high spirits and 
happy indigence, and wish I could join them among 
Jullien's models, or in the disreputable cabaret of Le 
Pere Lunette, or at a solemn disputation, such as that 
famous one in which the sophist Buridan, after being 
thrown into the Seine in a sack and rescued," maintained 
for a whole day the thesis that it was lawful to slay a 
Queen of France." 

The Sorbonne takes its name from Robert de Sorbon, 
the confessor of St. Louis, who had suffered much as 
a theological student and wished others to suffer less; 
for students in his day existed absolutely on charity. 
St. Louis threw himself into his confessor's scheme, and 
the Sorbonne, richly endowed, was opened in 1253, in its 
original form occupying a site in a street with the de- 
pressing name of Coupe-Gueule. From a hostel it soon 





THE FONTAINE DE MEDICIS 

(GARDEN' <ir-- thp: i.uxe:mi)ol:r(j) 



THE SORBONNE 181 

became the Church's intellect, and for five and a half 
centuries it thus existed, almost continually, I regret to 
say, pursuing what Gibbon calls " the exquisite rancour 
of theological hatred." Its hostility to Joan of Arc and 
the Reformation were alike intense. Richelieu built 
the second Sorbonne, on the site of the present one. 
The Revolution in its short sharp way put an end to it 
as a defender of the faith, and in 1808, under Napoleon, 
it sprang to life again with a broader and humaner 
programme as the Universite de France. 

Although arriving on the wrong day (a very easy 
thing to do in Paris) I induced the concierge to show 
me Puvis de Chavannes' vast and beautiful fresco in the 
Sorbonne's amphitheatre, entitled " La Source " — 
which is, I take it, the spring of wisdom. Thursday is 
the right day. In the chapel is the tomb of Richelieu, a 
florid monument with the dying cardinal and some very 
ostentatious grief upon it. Near by stands an elderly 
gentleman who charges twice as much for postcards as 
the dealers outside ; but one must not mind that. The 
church is not impressive, nor has a recent meretricious 
work by Weerts, representing the Love of Humanity 
and the Love of Country — the crucified Christ and a 
dead soldier — done it much good. Before it is a monu- 
ment to Auguste Comte. 

And now let us descend the hill and cheer and enrich 
our eyes in one of the most remarkable museums in the 
world — the Cluny. Paris is too fortunate. To have 
the Louvre were enough for any city, but Paris also has 



182 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

the Carnavalet. To have the Carnavalet were enough, 
but Paris also has the Cluny. The Musee de Cluny 
is devoted chiefly to appHed art and is a treasury of 
medieval taste. It is an ancient building, standing on 
the site of a Roman palace, the ruins of whose baths 
still remain. The present mansion was built by a 
Benedictine abbot in the fifteenth century : it became 
a storehouse of beautiful and rare objects in 1833, when 
the collector Alphonse du Sommerard bought it; and 
on his death the nation acquired both the house and 
its treasures, which have been steadily increasing ever 
since. Without, the Cluny is a romantic blend of late 
Gothic and Renaissance architecture: within, it is like 
the heaven of a good arts-and-craftsman ; or, to put it 
another way, like an old curiosity shop carried out to the 
highest power. I do not say that we have not as good 
collections at South Kensington ; but it is beyond doubt 
that the Cluny has a more attractive setting for them. 
To particularise would merely be to convert these 
pages into an incomplete catalogue (and what is duller 
than that.'^), but I may say that one passes among 
sculpture and painting, altar pieces and knockers, pottery 
and tapestry, Spanish leather and lace, gold work and 
glass, enamel and musical instruments, furniture (the 
state bed of Francis I.) and ivories (note those by Van 
Opstal), ironwork and jewels, fireplaces and exquisite 
slippers. The old keys alone are worth hours : some of 
them might almost be called jewels ; be sure to look at 
Nos. 6001 and 6022. Everything is remarkable. Writ- 



THE CLUNY 183 

ing in Ldndon, in a thick fog, at some distance of time 
since I saw the Cluny last, I remember most vividly those 
keys and a banc d'orfevre near them ; a chimney-piece, 
beautiful and vast, from an old house at Chalons-sur- 
Marne ; certain carvings in wood in the great room next 
the Thermes: the "Quatre Pleurants" of Claus de 
Worde ; a dainty Marie Madeleine by a Fleming, about 
1500 (there is another Marie Madeleine, in stone, in an 
adjacent room, kneeling with her alabaster box of oint- 
ment, but by no means penitent) ; and the Jesus on the 
Mount of Olives with the sleeping disciples. I remem- 
ber also, in one of the faience galleries, two delightful 
groups by Clodion — a " Satyre male " with two baby 
goat-feet playing by him, and a " Satyre femelle," very 
charming, also with two little shaggy mites at her knees. 
The " Fils de Rubens," in his little chair, is also a pleas- 
ant memory; and there is one of those remarkable 
Neapolitan reconstructions of the Nativity, of which the 
museum at Munich has such an amazing collection — 
perhaps the prettiest toys ever made. 

But as I have said, the Cluny is wonderful through- 
out, and it is almost ridiculous to particularise. It is 
also too small for every taste. For the lover of the 
hues that burn in Rhodian ware it is most memorable 
for its pottery; while of the many Parisians who visit 
it in holiday mood a large percentage make first for the 
glass case that contains its two famous ceintures. 

The Curator of the Carnavalet, as we have seen, is 
a topographer and antiquary of distinction ; the Director 



184 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

of the Cluny, M. Haraucourt, is a poet, one of whose 
ballads will be found in English form in a later chapter. 
He is in a happy environment, although his Muse does 
not look back quite as, say, Mr. Dobson's loves to do. 
The singer of the "Pompadour's Fan" and the "Old 
Sedan Chair" would be continually inspired at the 
Cluny. 

In the Gardens of the Musee we can feel ourselves in 
very early times ; for the baths are the ruins of a Roman 
palace built in 306, the home for a while of Julian the 
Apostate ; a temple of Mercury stood on the hill where 
the Pantheon now is; and a Roman road ran on the 
site of the Rue St. Jacques, just at the east of the Cluny, 
leading out of Paris southwards to Italy. 

On leaving the Cluny let us take a few steps westward 
along the Rue de I'Ecole de Medicine, and stop at No. 
15, where the Cordeliers' Club was held, whither Marat's 
body was brought to lie in state. His house, in which 
Charlotte Corday stabbed him, was close by, where 
the statue of Broca now stands. In the Boulevard St. 
Germain, at the end of the street, we come to Danton's 
statue and more memories of the Revolution. "What 
souvenirs of the past," says Sardou, "does the statue of 
Danton cast his shadow upon. At No. 87 Boulevard 
St. Germain — where the woman Simon keeps house ! it 
was the 31st March, 1793 — at six o'clock in the morn- 
ing, the rattling of the butt ends of muskets was heard 
on the pavement in the midst of wild cries and protesta- 
tions of the crowd, they had dared to arrest Danton, 



MEDIEVAL RELICS 185 

the Titan of the Revolution, the man of the 10th of 
August ! — at the same time on the Place de I'Odeon, 
at the corner of the Rue Crebillon, Camille Desmoulins 
had been arrested. An hour later they were both in 
the Luxembourg prison, and it was there Camille heard 
of the death of his mother. 

" The Passage du Commerce still exists. It is a most 
picturesque old quarter, rarely visited by Parisians. At 
No. 9 is Durel's library, where Guillotin in 1790 prac- 
tised cutting off sheep's heads with ' his philanthropic be- 
heading machine.' It is generally given out that he was 
guillotined himself, but ' Lempriere ' says he died quietly 
in his bed, of grief at the infamous abuse his instru- 
ment was put to. In the shop close by was the print- 
ing office of the I'Ami du Pewple, and Marat in his 
dressing-gown (lined with imitation panther skin) used 
to come and correct the proofs of his bloody journal." 

Between the Cluny and the river is a network of 
very old, squalid and interesting streets. Here the 
students of the middle ages found both their schools 
and their lodgings: among them Dante himself, who 
refers to the Rue de Fouarre (or straw, on which, follow- 
ing the instructions of Pope Urban V., the students sat) 
as the Vico degli Strami. It has now been demolished. 
The two churches here are worth a visit — St. Severin 
and St. Julien-Ie-Pauvre, but the reader is warned that 
the surroundings are not too agreeable. In the court ad- 
joining St. Julien's are traces of the wall of Philip Augus- 
tus, of which we saw something at the Mont de Piete. 



186 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

All these streets, as I say, are picturesque and dirty, 
but I think the best is the Rue de Bievre, which runs 
up the hill of St. Etienne from the Quai de Montebello, 
opposite the Morgue, and can be gained from St. Julien's 
by the dirty Rue de la Boucherie, of which this street 
and its westward continuation, the Rue de la Huchette, 
Huysmans, the French novelist and mystic, writes — 
as of all this curious district — in his book. La Bievre et 
Saint Severin, one of the best examples of imaginative 
topography that I know. Let us see what he says of 
the Bievre, the little river which gives the street its 
name and which once tumbled down into the Seine at 
this point, but is now buried underground like the New 
River at Islington. 

" The Bievre," he writes, " represents to-day one of the 
most perfect symbols of feminine misery exploited by a 
big city. Originating in the lake or pond of St. Quentin 
near de Trappes, it runs quietly and slowly through the 
valley that bears its name. Like many young girls from 
the country, directly it arrives in Paris the Bievre falls 
a victim to the cunning wide-awake industry of a catcher 
of men. . . . To follow all her windings, it is necessary 
to ascend the Rue du Moulin des Pres and enter the Rue 
de Gentilly, and then the most extraordinary and unsus- 
pected journey begins. In the middle of this street a 
square door opens on a prison corridor black as a sooty 
chimney and not wide enough for two abreast : this is the 
alley of the Reculettes, an old lane of ancient Paris. It 
ends in the Rue Croulebarbe, in a delightful landscape 
where one of the arms, remaining nearly free, of the 




LA BOH^MIENNE 

FRANZ HALS 

{Louvre) 



A LOST RIVER 187 

Bievre appears. Then under a little tunnel the Bievre 
disappears again. . . . 

"To find the mournful river once more you must 
pass in front of the tapestry manufactory in the Rue 
des Gobelins. . . . 

"The Rue des Gobelins leads to a little bridge 
bordered with a fence ; this little bridge stretches across 
the Bievre, which loses itself on one side under the 
Boulevards Arago and Port Royal and the other under 
the Alley of the Gobelins, which is the most surprising 
corner of concealed contemporary Paris. It is a crooked 
alley or lane, built on the left of houses that are cracked, 
bulging out and falling. . . ." 

Inspired by this passage I set out one day to trace 
the Bievre to daylight, but it was a cheerless enterprise, 
for the Rue Monge is a dreary street, and the new 
Boulevards hereabouts are even drearier because they 
are wider. I found her at last, by peeping through a 
hoarding in the Boulevard Arago, with tanneries on 
each side of her ; and then I gave it up. 

At the Cluny we saw the Thermes, a visible sign of 
Roman occupation; in the Rue Monge is another, the 
amphitheatre, still in very good condition, with the 
grass growing between the crevices of the great stone 
seats. Returning to the Rue de Bievre, of which Mr. 
Dexter has made so alluring a picture, let us remember 
that Dante in exile wrote part of the Divine Comedy in 
one of its houses. 

And now for the Pantheon, which rises above us. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE PANTHEON AND ST. GENEVIEVE 

A Church's Vicissitudes — St. Genevieve — A Guardian of Paris — 
Illustrious Converts — The Golden Legend ■ — A Sabbath-breaker — 
Genevieve's Sacred Body — Her Tomb — The Pantheon Frescoes 
— Joan of Arc • — The Pantheon Tombs — • Mirabeau and Marat — 
Voltaire's Funeral — The Thoughts of the Thinker — From the 
Dome — St. Etienne-du-Mont — The Fate of St. Genevieve — The 
Relic-hunters — The Mystery of the Wine-press. 

THE Pantheon, like the Madeleine, has had its 
vicissitudes. The new Madeleine, as we shall 
see, was begun by Napoleon as a splendid Temple of 
military glory and became a church ; the new Pantheon 
was begun by Louis XV. as a splendid cathedral and 
became a Temple of Glory, not, however, military but 
civil. Louis XV., when he designed its erection on the 
site of the old church, intended it to be the church of 
St. Genevieve, whose tomb was its proudest possession ; 
when the Revolution altered all that, it was made 
secular and dedicated "aux grands hommes la patrie 
reconnaissante," and the first grand homme to be buried 
there was Mirabeau (destined, however, not to remain 
a grand homme very long, as we shall see), and the next 
Voltaire. In 1806 Napoleon made it a church again; 

188 



HOLY SHEPHERDESSES 189 

in 1830 the Revolutionaries again secularised it; in 
1851 it was consecrated again, and in 1885 once more 
it became secular, to receive the body of Victor Hugo, 
and secular it has remained; and considering every- 
thing, secular it is likely to be, for whatever of change 
and surprise the future holds for France, an excess of 
ecclesiastical ecstasy is hardly probable. 

So much of Louis XV.'s idea remains, in spite of the 
perversion of his purpose, that scenes from the life of 
St. Genevieve are painted on the Pantheon's walls and 
sculptured on its fa9ade; while in its last sacred days 
the church was known again as St. Genevieve's. Pos- 
sibly there are old people in the neighbourhood who 
still call it that. I hope so. 

The life of St. Genevieve as told in The Golden 
Legend is rather a series of facile miracles than a human 
document, as we say. She was born in the fifth century 
at Nanterre and early became a protegee of St. Ger- 
main, who vowed her to chastity and holiness, from 
which she never departed. Her calling, like that of 
her new companion on the canon, St. Joan, was that 
of shepherdess, and one of Puvis de Chavannes' most 
charming frescoes in the Pantheon represents her as a 
shadowy slip of a girl kneeling to a crucifix while her 
sheep graze about her. I reproduce it opposite the next 
page. Her mother, who had, like most mothers, a 
desire that her daughter should marry and have chil- 
dren, once so far lost her temper as to strike Genevieve 
on the cheek; for which offence she became blind. 



190 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

(A very comfortable corner of heaven is, one feels, the 
due of the mothers of saints.) She remained blind for 
a long time, until remembering that St. Germain had 
promised for her daughter miraculous gifts, she sent for 
Genevieve and was magnanimously cured. After the 
death of her parent, Genevieve moved to Paris, and there 
she lived with an old woman, dividing the neighbourhood 
into believers and unbelievers in her sanctity, as is ever 
the way with saints. Here the Devil persecuted and 
attacked her with much persistence and ingenuity, but 
wholly without effect. 

During her long life she made Paris her principal 
home, and on more than one occasion saved it: hence 
her importance not only to the Parisians, who set her 
above St. Denis (whom she reverenced), but to this 
book. Her power of prayer was gigantic; she liter- 
ally prayed Attila the Hun out of his siege of Paris, 
and later, when Childeric was the besieger and Paris 
was starving, she brought victuals into the city by boat 
in a miraculous way : another scene chosen by Puvis de 
Chavannes in his Pantheon series. Childeric, however, 
conquered, in spite of Genevieve, but he treated her with 
respect and made it easy for her to approach Clovis 
and Clotilde and convert them to Christianity — hence 
the convent of St. Genevieve, which Clovis founded, 
remains of which are still to be seen by the church of St. 
Etienne-du-Mont, in the two streets named after those 
early Christians — the Rue Clovis and the Rue Clotilde. 
Christianity had been introduced into Paris by Saint 



THE SIMPLEST LIFE 191 

Denis, Genevieve's hero, in the third century ; but then 
came a reaction and the new faith lost ground. It was 
St. Genevieve's conversion of Clovis that re-estabhshed 
it on a much firmer basis, for he made it the national 
religion. 

"This holy maid," says Caxton, "did great penance 
in tormenting her body all her life, and became lean 
for to give good example. For sith she was of the age 
of fifteen years, unto fifty, she fasted every day save 
Sunday and Thursday. In her refection she had no- 
thing but barley bread, and sometime beans, the which, 
sodden after fourteen days or three weeks, she ate for 
all delices. Always she was in prayers in wakings and 
in penances, she drank never wine ne other liquor, that 
might make her drunk, in all her life. When she had 
lived and used this life fifty years, the bishops that were 
that time, saw and beheld that she was over feeble by 
abstinence as for her age, and warned her to increase a 
little her fare. The holy woman durst not gainsay 
them, for our Lord saith of the prelates : Who heareth 
you heareth me, and who despiseth you despiseth me, 
and so she began by obedience to eat with her bread, 
fish and milk, and how well that, she so did, she beheld 
the heaven and wept, whereof it is to believe that she 
saw appertly our Lord Jesus Christ after the promise 
of the gospel that saith that, Blessed be they that be 
clean of heart for they shall see God ; she had her heart 
and body pure and clean." 

Caxton also tells quaintly the story of one of the 



192 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

first miracles performed by Genevieve's tomb: "An- 
other man came thither that gladly wrought on the 
Sunday, wherefor our Lord punished him, for his hands 
were so benumbed and lame that he might not work on 
other days. He repented him and confessed his sin, 
and came to the tomb of the said virgin, and there 
honoured and prayed devoutly, and on the morn he 
returned all whole, praising and thanking our Lord, that 
by the worthy merits and prayers of the holy virgin, 
grant and give us pardon, grace, and joy perdurable." 

To St. Genevieve's tomb we shall come on leaving 
the Pantheon, but here after so much about her adven- 
tures when alive I might say something about her 
adventures when dead. She was buried in 511 in the 
Abbey church of the Holy Apostles, on the site of 
which the Pantheon stands. Driven out by the Nor- 
mans, the monks removed the saint's body and carried it 
away in a box ; and thereafter her remains were destined 
to rove, for when the monks returned to the Abbey they 
did not again place them in the tomb but kept them in 
a casket for use in processions whenever Paris was in 
trouble and needed supernatural help. Meanwhile her 
tomb, although empty, continued to work miracles also. 

Early in the seventeenth century her bones were re- 
stored to her tomb, which was made more splendid, and 
there they remained until the Revolution. The Revo- 
lutionists, having no use for saints, opened Genevieve's 
tomb, burned its contents on the Place de Greve, and 
melted the gold of the canopy into money. They also 



THE MAID IN ART 193 

desecrated the church of St. Etienne-du-Mont (which 
we are about to visit) and made it a Temple of Theo- 
philanthropy. A few years later the stone coffer was 
removed to St. Etienne-du-Mont, where it now is, gor- 
geously covered with Gothic splendours ; but as to how 
minute are the fragments of the saint that it contains 
which must have been overlooked by the incendiary 
Revolutionaries, I cannot say. They are sufficient, how- 
ever, still to cure the halt and the lame and enable them 
to leave their crutches behind. 

The Pantheon is a vast and dreary building, sadly in 
need of a little music and incense to humanise it. The 
frescoes are interesting — those of Puvis de Chavannes 
in particular, although a trifle too wan — but one cannot 
shake off depression and chill. The Joan of Arc paint- 
ings by Lenepveu are the least satisfactory, the Maid 
of this artist carrying no conviction with her. But 
when it comes to that, it is difficult to say which of the 
Parisian Maids of art is satisfactory: certainly not the 
audacious golden Amazon of Fremiet in the Place de 
Rivoli. Dubois' figure opposite St. Augustin's is more 
earnest and spiritual, but it does not quite realise one's 
wishes. I think that I like best the Joan in the Bou- 
levard Saint-Marcel, behind the Jardin des Plantes. 

The vault of the Pantheon may be seen only in the 
company of a guide, and there is a charge. To be quite 
sure that Rousseau is in his grave is perhaps worth the 
money; but one resents the fee none the less. Great 
Frenchmen's graves — especially Victor Hugo's — 



194 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

should be free to all. There is no charge at the Invalides. 
You may stand beside Heine's tomb in the Cimitiere 
de Montmartre without money and without a guide, but 
not by Voltaii'e's in the Pantheon; Balzac's grave in 
Pere Lachaise is free, Zola's in the Pantheon costs 
seventy-five centimes. 

The guide hurries his flock from one vault to another, 
at one point stopping for a while to exchange badinage 
with an echo. Rousseau, as I have said, is here; Vol- 
taire is here; here are General Carnot, President Car- 
not with a mass of faded wreaths, Soufflot, who designed 
the Pantheon, thinking his work was for St. Genevieve, 
and who died of anxiety owing to a subsidence of the 
walls, Victor Hugo, and, lately moved hither, not with- 
out turmoil and even pistol shots, the historian of the 
Rougon-Macquart family and the author of a letter of 
accusation famous in history. 

Not without turmoil ! which reminds one that the 
Pantheon's funerals have been more than a little ffro- 
tesque. I said, for example, that Mirabeau was the first 
prophet of reason to be buried here, amid a concourse 
of four hundred thousand mourners ; yet you may look 
in vain for his tomb. And there is a record of the 
funeral of Marat, in a car designed by David ; yet you 
may look in vain for Marat's sarcophagus also. The 
explanation (once more) is that we are in France, the 
land of the fickle mob. For within three years of the 
state burial of Mirabeau, with the National Guard on 
duty, the Convention directed that he should be ex- 




STE. GENEVIEVE 

PUVIS DE CHAVANNES 

{Pantheoii) 



VOLTAIRE'S RUINED OBSEQUIES 195 

humed and Marat laid in his place. Mirabeau's body 
therefore was removed at night and thrown into the 
earth in the cenaetery of Clamart. Enter Marat. 
Marat, however, lay beneath this imposing dome only 
three poor months, and then off went he, a discredited 
corpse, to the graveyard of St. Etienne-du-Mont close 
by. Voltaire, however, and Rousseau held their own, 
and here they are still, as we have seen. 

Voltaire came hither under circumstances at once 
tragic and comic. The cortege started from the site of 
the Bastille, led by the dead philosopher in a cart drawn 
by twelve horses, in which his figure was being crowned 
by a young girl. Opposite the Opera house of that 
day — by the Porte St. Martin — a pause was made for 
the singing of suitable hymns (from the Ferney Hymnal !) 
and on it came again. Surrounding the car were fifty 
girls dressed by David for the part; in the procession 
were other damsels in the costumes of Voltaire's char- 
acters. Children scattered roses before the horses. 
What could be prettier for Voltaire.^ But it needed 
fine weather, and instead came the most appalling storm, 
which frightened all the young women (including Fame, 
from the car) into doorways, and washed all the colour 
from the great man's efiigy. 

Remembering all these things, one realises that Rodin's 
Penseur, who was placed before the Pantheon in 1906, 
has something to brood over and break his mind upon. 
I noticed also among the graves that of one Ignace 
Jacqueminot, and wondering if it were he who gave his 



196 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

name to the rose, I was so conscious of gloom and mor- 
tality that I hastened to the regions of light — to the 
sweet air of the Mont du Paris and the blue sky over 
all. And later I climbed to the lantern — a trifle of 
some four hundred steps — and looked down on Paris 
and its river and away to the hills, and realised how 
much better it was to be a live dog than a dead lion. 

For the tomb of St. Genevieve we have only a few 
steps to take, since it stands, containing all of her that 
was not burned, in the church of St. Etienne-du-Mont. 
The first martyr, although he gives his name to the 
church and is seen suffering the stone-throwers in the re- 
lief over the door, is, however, as nothing. St. Gene- 
vieve is the true patron. 

St. Etienne's is one of the most interesting churches 
in Paris, without and within. The fa9ade is bizarre and 
attractive, with its jumble of styles, its lofty tower and 
Renaissance trimmings, and the sacristan's prophet's- 
house high up, on the northern side of the odd little 
extinguisher. You see this best, and his tiny watch- 
dog trotting up and down his tiny garden, by descend- 
ing the hill a little way and then turning. Within, the 
church is fascinating. The pillars of the very lofty nave 
and aisles are slender and sure, the vaulting is delicate 
and has a unique carved marble rood-loft to divide the 
nave from the choir, stretching right along the church, 
with a rampe of great beauty. The pulpit is held up 
by Samson seated upon his lion and grasping the jaw- 
bone of an ass. 



A FETE DAY 197 

The last time I saw this pulpit was during the Fete 
of St. Genevieve, which is held early in January, when 
it contained a fluent nasal preacher to whom a congrega- 
tion that filled every seat was listening with rapt atten- 
tion. At the same time a moving procession of other 
worshippers was steadily passing the tomb, which was a 
blaze of light and heat from some hundreds of candles 
of every size. The man in front of me in the queue, a 
stout bourgeois, with his wife and two small daughters, 
bought four candles at a franc each. He was all ner- 
vousness and anxiety before then, but having watched 
them lighted and placed in position, his face became 
tranquil and gay, and they passed quickly out, re- 
entered their motor-cab and returned to the normal life. 

Outside the church was a row of stalls wholly given 
up to the sale of tokens of the saint — little biographies, 
medals, rosaries, and all the other pretty apparatus of 
the long-memoried Roman Catholic Church. I bought 
a silver pendant, a brief biography, and a tiny metal 
statue. I feel now that had I also bought a candle, as 
I was minded to, I should have escaped the cold that, 
developing two or three days later, kept me in bed for 
nearly a fortnight. One must be thorough. 

The church not only has agreeable architectural 
features and the tomb of this good woman, it has also 
some admirable glass, not exactly beautiful but very 
quaint and interesting, including a famous window by the 
Pinaigriers, representing the mystery of the wine-press, 
as drawn from Isaiah : " I have trodden the wine-press 



198 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

alone, and of the people there was none with me." 
The colouring is very rich and satisfying, even if the 
design itself offends by its literalism and want of ima- 
gination — Christianity being figured by the blood of 
Christ as it gushes forth into barrels pressed from his 
body as relentlessly as ever was juice of the grape. All 
this is horrible, but one need not study it minutely. 
There are other windows less remarkable but not less 
rich and glowing. 

Other illustrious dust that lies beneath this church 
is that of Racine and Pascal. 



CHAPTER XIII 

TWO ZOOS 

The Tour d' Argent — Frederic's Homage to America — A Marquis 
Poet — The Halle des Vins — A Free Zoo — Peacocks in Love — 
A Reminiscence — The Museums of the Jardin des Plantes — A 
Lifeless Zoo — Babies in Bottles — The Jardin d'Acclimatation — 
The Cheerful Gallas — A Pretty Stable — Dogs on Velvet — A 
Canine Pere Lachaise — The Sunday Sportsmen — Panic at the 
Zoos — The Besieged Resident — The Humours of Famine. 

ON the day of one of my visits to the Jardin des 
Plantes I lunched at the Tour d'Argent, a 
restaurant on the Quai de la Tournelle, famous among 
many dishes for its delicious canard a la presse. No 
bird on this occasion passed through that luxurious 
mill for me: but the engines were at work all around 
distilling essential duck with which to enrich those 
slices from the breast that are all that the epicure eats. 
Over a simpler repast I studied a bewildering catalogue 
of the " Creations of Frederic " — Frederic being M. 
Frederic Delair, a venerable cordon bleu with a head 
like that of a culinary Ibsen, stored with strange lore 
of sauces. 

By what means one commends oneself to Frederic I 
cannot say, but certain it is that if he loves you he will 

199 



200 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

immortalise you in a dish. Americans would seem to 

have a short cut to his heart, for I find the Canape 

Clarence Mackay, the Filet de Sole Loie Fuller, the 

Filet de Sole Gibbs, the Fondu de Merlan Peploe, the 

Poulet de Madame J. W. Mackay, and the Poire Wana- 

maker. None of these joys tempted me, but I am sorry 

now that I did not partake of the Potage Georges Cain, 

because M. Georges Cain knows more about old Paris 

than any man living; and who knows but that a few 

spoonfuls of his Potage might not have immensely 

enriched this book ! The Noisette de Pre-Sale Bodley 

again should have been nourishing, for Mr. Bodley is 

the author of one of the best of all the many studies of 

Prance. Instead, however, I ate very simply, of ordinary 

dishes — foundlings, so to speak, named after no one — 

and amused myself over my coffee in examining the 

Marquis Lauzieres de Themines' poesie sur les Creations 

de Frederic (to the air of "La Gorde Sensible"). Two 

stanzas and two choruses will illustrate the noble poet's 

range : — 

Que filets de sole on y consomme ! 

Sole Neron, Cardinal, Maruka. 

Dosamentes, Edson . . . d'autres qu'on nomme 

Victor Renault, Saintgall, Heredia. 

La liste est longue ! rognons, cotelettes, 

Poulet Sigaud et Canard MacArthur, 

Filets de lievre Arnold White et Noisettes 

De Pre-sale, Langouste Wintherthur. 

Ce que je fais n'est pas une reclame, 

Je vous le dis pour etre obligeant. 

Je m'en voudrais d'encourir votre blame 

Pour avoir trop vante La Tour D 'Argent. 



f 



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gr i 



m 



^a 



w 



T p 



1,F 



THE MUSEE CLUNY (COURTYARD) 



RAW WINE 201 

Lek noms des (Eufs de cent fafons s'etalent, 
CEufs Bucheron, oeufs Claude Lowther, 
(Eufs Tuck, Rathbone, oeufs Mackay que n'egalent 
Que les chaud-froids de volaille Henniker. 
Que d'entremets ont nom de "la Tournelle"! 
Et plus souvent, le vocable engageant 
Du restaurant, car plus d'un plat s'appelle 
(Gibier, beignets, salade)"Tour d'Argent." 

Ami lecteur, pour faire bonne chere, 
Ecoute-moi, ne sois pas negligent, 
Va-t-en diner, si ta sante t'est chere, 
Au Restaurant nomme La Tour D'Argent. 

(Odd work for Marquises !) 

On the way to the Jardin des Plantes from this 
restaurant it is not unamusing to turn aside to the 
Halles des Vins and loiter a while in these genial cata- 
combs. Here you may see barrels as the sands of the 
sea-shore for multitude, and raw wine of a colour that 
never yet astonished in a bottle, and I hope, so far as 
I am concerned, never will: unearthly aniline juices 
that are to pass through many dark processes before 
they emerge smilingly as vins, to lend cheerfulness to 
the windows of the epicier and gaiety to the French 
heart. 

Even with the most elementary knowledge of French 
one would take the Jardin des Plantes to be the Parisian 
Kew, and so to some small extent it is ; but ninety-nine 
per cent, of its visitors go not to see the flora but the 
fauna. It is in reality the Zoo of the Paris proletariat. 
Paris, unlike London, has two Zoos, both of which hide 
beneath names that easily conceal their zoological char- 



202 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

acter from the foreigner — the Jardin des Plantes, 
where we now find ourselves, which is free to all, 
and the Jardin d'Acclimatation, on the edge of the Bois 
de Boulogne, near the Porte Maillot, which costs money 

— a franc to enter and a ridiculous supplement to your 
cabman for the privilege of passing the fortifications 
in his vehicle : one of Paris's little mistakes. To the 
Jardin d'Acclimatation we shall come anon: just now 
let us loiter among the wild animals of the Jardin des 
Plantes, which is as a matter of fact a far more thorough 
Zoo than that selecter other, where frivolity ranks before 
zoology. Our own Zoo contains a finer collection than 
either, and our animals are better housed and ordered, 
but this Parisian people's Zoo has a great advantage 
over ours in that it is free. All zoological gardens 
should of course be free. 

The Jardin des Plantes has another and a dazzling 
superiority in the matter of peacocks. I never saw so 
many. They occur wonderfully in the most unexpected 
places, not only in the enclosures of all the other open-air 
animals, but in trees and on roofs and amid the bushes 

— burning with their deep and lustrous blue. But on 
the warm day of spring on which I saw them first they 
were not so quiescent. Regardless of the proprieties they 
were most of them engaged in recommending them- 
selves to the notice of their ladies. On all sides were 
spreading tails bearing down upon the beloved with the 
steady determination of a three-masted schooner, and 
now and then caught like that vessel in a shattering: 



THE PEACOCKS 203 

breeze (of emotion) which stirred every sail. In Eng- 
land one might feel uncomfortable in the midst of so 
naked a display of the old Adam, but in Paris one be- 
comes more reconciled to facts and (like the new cat in 
the adage) ceases to allow " I am ashamed " to wait upon 
"I would." The peahens, however, behaved with a 
stolid circumspection that was beyond praise. These 
vestals never lifted their heads from the ground, but 
pecked on and on, mistresses of the scene and incident- 
ally the best friends of the crowds of ouvriers and ouvri- 
eres ("Via le paon ! Vite ! Vite!") at every railing. 
But the Parisian peacock is not easily daunted. In spite 
of these rebuffs the batteries of glorious eyes continued 
firing, and wider and wider the tails spread, with a corre- 
sponding increase of disreputable deshabille behind; 
and so I left them, recalling as I walked away a comic 
occurrence at school too many years ago, when a travel- 
ling elocutionist, who had induced our headmaster to 
allow him to recite to the boys, was noticed to be discharg- 
ing all his guns of tragedy and humour (some of which I 
remember distinctly at the moment) with a broadside 
effect that while it assisted the ear had a limiting: in- 
fluence on gesture and by-play, and completely elimi- 
nated many of the nuances of conversational give and 
take. Never throughout the evening did we lose sight 
of the full expanse of his shirt front ; never did he turn 
round. Never, do I say ? But I am wrong. Better for 
him had it been never : for the poor fellow, his task over 
and his badly needed guinea earned, forgot under our 



204 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

salvoes of applause the need of caution, and turning from 
one side of the platform to the other in stooping ac- 
knowledgement, disclosed a rent precisely where no 
man would have a rent to be. 

My advice to the visitor to the Jardin des Plantes is 
to be satisfied with the living animals — with the seals 
and sea-lions, the bears and peacocks, the storks and 
tigers ; and, in fair weather, with the flowers, although 
the conditions under which these are to be observed are 
not ideal, so formally arranged on the flat as they are, 
with trafiic so visibly adjacent. But to the glutton for 
museums such advice is idle. Here, however, even he 
is like to have his fill. 

Let him then ask at the Administration for a ticket, 
which will be handed to him with the most charming 
smile by an official who is probably of all the bureaucrats 
of Paris the least deserving of a tip, since zoological and 
botanical gardens exist for the people, and these tickets 
(the need for which is, by the way, non-existent) are 
free and are never withheld — but who is also of all the 
bureaucrats of Paris the most determined to get one, 
even, as I observed, from his own countrymen. Thus 
supplied you must walk some quarter of a mile to a huge 
building in which are collected all the creatures of the 
earth in their skins as God made them, but lifeless and 
staring from the hands of taxidermic man. It is as 
though the ark had been overwhelmed by some such 
fine dust as fell from Vesuvius, and was now exhumed. 
One does not get the same effect from the Natural 



BIOLOGY FOR THE CROWD 205 

History Museum in the Cromwell Road ; it is, I suppose, 
the massing that does it here. 

Having walked several furlongs amid this travesty of 
wild and dangerous life, one passes to the next museum, 
which is devoted to mineralogy and botany, and here 
again are endless avenues of joy for the museephile and 
tedium for others. Lastly, after another quarter of a 
mile's walk, the palatial museum of anatomy is reached, 
the ingenious art of M. Fremiet once more providing 
a hors d'oeuvre. At the Arts Decoratifs we find on the 
threshold a man dragging a bear cub into captivity; 
at the Petit Palais St. George is killing the dragon 
just inside the turnstile; and here, near the umbrella- 
stand, is a man being strangled by an ourang-outang. 
Thus cheered we enter, and are at once amid a very 
grove of babies in bottles : babies unready for the world, 
babies with two heads, babies with no heads at all, 
babies, in short, without any merit save for the biologist, 
the distiller, and the sightseer with strong nerves. 
From the babies we pass to cases containing examples 
of every organ of the human form divine, and such 
approximations as have been accomplished by ele- 
phants and mice and monkeys — all either genuine, in 
spirits, or counterfeited with horrible minuteness in wax. 
Also there are skeletons of every known creature, from 
whales to frogs, and I noticed a case illustrating the 
daily progress of the chicken in the egg. 

And now for the other Zoo, the Zoo of the classes. 
Perhaps the best description is to call it a playground 



206 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

with animals in it. For there are children everywhere, 
and everything is done for their amusement — as is only 
natural in a land where children persist through life 
and no one ever tires. In the centre of the gardens is 
an enclosure in which in the summer of 1908 were 
encamped a colony of Gallas, an intelligent and attrac- 
tive black people from the border of Abyssinia, who 
flung spears at a target, and fought duels, and danced 
dances of joy and sorrow, and rounded up zebras, and in 
the intervals sold curiosities and photographs of them- 
selves with ingratiating tenacity. It was a strange 
bizarre entertainment with greedy ostriches darting 
their beaks among the spectators, and these shock- 
headed savages screaming through their diversions, and 
now and again a refined slip of a black girl imploring 
one mutely to give a franc for a five centimes picture 
postcard, or murmuring incoherent rhapsodies over the 
texture of a European dress. 

All around the enclosure the Parisian children were 
playing, some riding elephants, others camels, some 
driving an ostrich cart, and all happy. But the gem of 
the Jardin is the Ecurie, on one side for ponies — scores 
of little ponies, all named — the other for horses ; on 
one side a riding school for children, on the other 
side a riding school for grown-up pupils, perhaps the 
cavalry officers of the future. The ponies are charm- 
ing : Bibiche, jument landais, Volubilite, cheval landais, 
Ceramon, cheval finlandais, Farceur, from the same 
country, Columbine, nee de Ratibor, and so forth. 




LA LEgON DE LECTURE 

TERBURG 

{Lotevre) 



A CHILDREN'S PARADISE 207 

7 

There they wait, alert and patient too, in the manner 
of small ponies, and by-and-by one is led off to the 
Petit manege for a little Monsieur Paul or Etienne to 
bestride. The Ecurie is a model of its kind, with its 
central courtyard and offices for the various servants, 
sellier, piqueur and so forth. 

Near by is a castellated fortress which might belong 
to a dwarf of blood but is really a rabbit house. Every 
kind of rabbit is here, with this difference from the 
rabbit house in our Zoo, that the animals are for sale; 
and there is a fragrant vacherie where you may learn 
to milk ; and in another part is a collection of dogs — 
tou-tous and lou-lous and all the rest of it — and these 
are for sale too. This is as popular a department as 
any in the Jardin. The expressions of delight and 
even ecstasy which were being uttered before some of 
the cages I seem still to hear. 

The Parisians may be kind fathers and devoted 
mothers : I am sure that they are ; but to the observer 
in the streets and restaurants their finest shades of 
protective affection would seem to be reserved for dogs. 
One sees their children with bonnes; their dogs are 
their own care. The ibis of Egypt is hardly more 
sacred. An English friend who has lived in the heart 
of Paris for some time in the company of a fox terrier 
tells me that on their walks abroad in the evening the 
number of strangers who stop him to pass friendly 
remarks upon his pet or ask to be allowed to pat it — 
or who make overtures to it without permission — is 



208 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

beyond belief. No pink baby in Kensington Gardens 
is more admired. Dogs in English restaurants are a 
rarity : but in Paris they are so much a matter of course 
that a little patee is always ready for them. 

It was of course a French tongue that first gave utter- 
ance to the sentiment, "The more I see of men the 
more I like dogs;" but I cannot pretend to have ob- 
served that the Frenchman suffers any loss in prestige 
or power from this attention to the tou-tou and the lou- 
lou. Nothing, I believe, will ever diminish the confidence 
or success of that lord of creation. He may to the in- 
sular eye be too conscious of his charms ; he may suggest 
the boudoir rather than the field of battle or the field of 
sport ; he may amuse by his hat, astonish by his beard, 
and perplex by his boots ; but the fact remains that he is 
master of Paris, and Paris is the centre of civilisation. 

The Parisians not only adore their dogs in life : they 
give them very honourable burial. We have in London, 
by Lancaster Gate, a tiny cemetery for these friendly 
creatures; but that is nothing as compared with the 
cemetery at St. Ouen, on an island in the Seine. Here 
are monuments of the most elaborate description, and 
fresh wreaths everywhere. The most striking tomb is 
that of a Saint Bernard who saved forty persons but 
was killed by the forty-first — a hero of whose history 
one would like to know more, but the gate-keeper is 
curiously uninstructed.^ 

^ I have since learned that this is the same dog, Barry by name, 
who has a monument on the St. Bernard Pass and is stuffed in the 



THE DOG-LOVERS 209 

I walked among these myriad graves, all very recent 
in date, and was not a little touched by the affection 
that had gone to their making. I noted a few names : 
Petit Bob, Esperance (whose portrait is in bas-relief 
accompanied by that of its master), Peggie, Fan, Pincke, 
Manon, Dick, Siko, Leonette (aged 17 years and 4 
months), Toby, Kiki, Ben-Ben (" ton jours gai, fidele et 
caressant " — what an epitaph to strive for !) , Javotte, 
Nana, Lili, Dedjaz, Trinquefort, Teddy and Prince 
(whose mausoleum is superb), Fifi (who saved lives), 
Colette, Dash (a spaniel, with a little bronze sparrow 
perching on his tomb). Boy, Bizon (who saved his 
owner's life and therefore has this souvenir), and 
Mosque (" regrette et fidele ami "). There must be hun- 
dreds and hundreds altogether, and it will not be long 
before another " Dog's Acre " is required. 

Standing amid all the little graves I felt that the one 
thing I wanted to see was a dog's funeral. For surely 
there must be impressive obsequies as a preparation to 
such thoughtful burial. But I did not. No melancholy 
cortege came that way that afternoon; Fido's pompes 
funebres are still a mystery to me. 

But to my mind the best dogs in Paris are not such 
toy pets as for the most part are here kept in sacred 
memory, but those eager pointers that one sees on 
Sunday morning at the Gare du Nord, and indeed at all 
the big stations, following brisk, plump sportsmen with 

Natural History Museum at Berne. But I know nothing of his 
connection with Paris. 
p 



210 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

all the opera bouffe insignia of the chase — the leggings 
and the belt and the great satchel and the gun. For 
the Frenchman who is going to shoot likes the world 
to know what a lucky devil he is : he has none of our 
furtive English unwillingness to be known for what we 
are. I have seen them start, and I have waited about 
in the station towards dinner time just to see them 
return, with their bags bulging, and their steps spring- 
ing with the pride and elation of success, and the faith- 
ful pointers trotting behind. 

Everything is happy at the Jardins des Plantes 
and d'Acclimatation to-day: but it was not always so. 
During a critical period of 1870 and 1871 the cages 
were in a state of panic over the regular arrival of the 
butcher — not to bring food but to make it. Mr. Labou- 
chere, the "Besieged Resident," writing on December 
5th, 1870, says: "Almost all the animals in the Jardin 
d'Acclimatation have been eaten. They have averaged 
about 7 f . a lb. Kangaroo has been sold for 12 f. the lb. 
Yesterday I dined with the correspondent of a London 
paper. He had managed to get a large piece of mujfflon, 
and nothing else, an animal which is, I believe, only 
found in Corsica. I can only describe it by saying that 
it tasted of mufflon, and nothing else. Without being 
absolutely bad, I do not think that I shall take up my 
residence in Corsica, in order habitually to feed upon it." 

On December 18th Mr. Labouchere was at Voisin's. 
The bill of fare, he says, was ass, horse and English 
wolf from the Zoological Gardens. According to a 



MR. LABOUCHERE'S DAY 211 

Scotch friend, the EngHsh wolf was Scotch fox. Mr. 
Labouchere could not manage it and fell back on the 
patient ass. Voisin's, by the way, was the only restau- 
rant which never failed to supply its patrons with a 
meal. If you ask Paul, the head waiter, he will give 
you one of the siege menus as a souvenir. 

Mr. Labouchere's description of typical life during 
the siege may be quoted here as offering material for 
reflection as we loiter about this city so notable to-day 
for pleasure and plenty. "Here is my day. In the 
morning the boots comes to call me. He announces 
the number of deaths which have taken place in the 
hotel during the night. If there are many, he is 
pleased, as he considers it creditable to the establishment. 
He then relieves his feelings by shaking his fist in the 
direction of Versailles, and exit growling 'Canaille de 
Bismarck.' I get up. I have breakfast — horse, cafe 
au lait — the lait chalk and water — the portion of 
horse about two square inches of the noble quadruped. 
Then I buy a dozen newspapers, and after having read 
them discover that they contain nothing new. This 
brings me to about eleven o'clock. Friends drop in, or I 
drop in on friends. We discuss how long it is to last — 
if friends are French we agree that we are sublime. At 
one o'clock get into the circular railroad, and go to one 
or other of the city gates. After a discussion with the 
National Guards on duty, pass through. Potter about 
for a couple of hours at the outposts ; try with glass to 
make out Prussians; look at bombs bursting; creep 



212 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

along the trenches ; and wade knee-deep in mud through 
the fields. The Prussians, who have grown of late male- 
volent even towards civilians, occasionally send a ball far 
over one's head. They always fire too high. French 
soldiers are generally cooking food. They are anxious 
for news, and know nothing about what is going on. 
As a rule they relate the episode of some combat 
d'avant-poste which took place the day before. The 
episodes never vary. 5 p.m. — Get back home; talk to 
doctors about interesting surgical operations ; then drop 
in upon some official to interview him about what he 
is doing. Official usually first mysterious, then com- 
municative, not to say loquacious, and abuses most 
people except himself. 7 p.m. — Dinner at a restaurant, 
conversation general; almost everyone in uniform. 
Still the old subjects — How long will it last ? Why 
does not Gambetta write more clearly.^ How sublime 
we are ; what a fool everyone else is. Food scanty, but 
peculiar. . . . After dinner, potter on the Boulevards 
under the dispiriting gloom of petroleum ; go home and 
read a book. 12 p.m. — Bed. They nail up the coffins 
in the room just over mine every night, and the tap, 
tap, tap, as they drive in the nails, is the pleasing music 
which lulls me to sleep." 

Here is another extract illustrating the pass to which 
a hungry city had come : " Until the weather set in so 
bitter cold, elderly sportsmen, who did not care to stalk 
the human game outside, were to be seen from morning 
to night pursuing the exciting sport of gudgeon fishing 



THE SIEGE 213 

along the banks of the Seine. Each one was always 
surrounded by a crowd deeply interested in the chase. 
Whenever a fish was hooked, there was as much excite- 
ment as when a whale is harpooned in more northern 
latitudes. The fisherman would play it for some five 
minutes, and then, in the midst of the solemn silence of 
the lookers-on, the precious capture would be landed. 
Once safe on the bank, the happy possessor would be 
patted on the back, and there would be cries of ' Bravo ! ' 
The times being out of joint for fishing in the Seine, 
the disciples of Izaak Walton have fallen back on the 
sewers. The Paris Journal gives them the following 
directions how to pursue their new game: 'Take a 
long strong line, and a large hook, bait with tallow, and 
gently agitate the rod. In a few minutes a rat will come 
and smell the savoury morsel. It will be some time 
before he decides to swallow it, for his nature is cunning. 
When he does, leave him five minutes to meditate over 
it ; then pull strongly and steadily. He will make con- 
vulsive jumps ; but be calm, and do not let his excite- 
ment gain on you, draw him up, et voila voire diner.' " 
There is still hardly less excitement when a fish 
is landed by a quai fisherman, but the emotion is now 
purely artistic. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE GRANDS BOULEVARDS : I. THE MADELEINE TO THE 
OPERA 

From Temple to Church — Napoleon the Christian — The Chapelle 
Expiatoire — More Irony of History — Mi-Careme — The Art of 
Insolence — Spacious Streets — The Champions of France — 
Marius — Letter-boxes and Stamps — The Facteur at the Bed — 
Killing a Guide no Murder — The Largest Theatre in the World — 
A Theatrical Museum. 

THE Madeleine has had a curious history. The 
great Napoleon built it, on the site of a small 
eighteenth-century church, as a Temple of Glory, a gift 
to his soldiers, where every year on the anniversaries of 
Austerlitz and Jena a concert was to be held, odes read, 
and orations delivered on the duties and privileges of 
the warrior, any mention of the Emperor's own name 
being expressly forbidden. That was in 1806. The 
building was still in progress when 1815 came, with an- 
other and more momentous battle in it, and Napoleon 
and his proposal disappeared. The building of the 
Temple of Glory was continued as a church, and a 
church it still is ; and the memory of Jena and Auster- 
litz is kept alive in Paris by other means (they have, for 
example, each a bridge), no official orations are delivered 
on the soldier's calling, no official odes recited. It was 

214 



THE MADELEINE 215 

a noble idea of the Emperor's, and however perfunctorily 
carried out could not have left one with a less satisfied 
feeling than some of the present ceremonials in the 
Madeleine, which has become the most fashionable Paris 
church. Napoleon, however, is not wholly forgotten, for 
in the apse, I understand, is a fresco representing Christ 
reviewing the chief champions of Christianity and felici- 
tating with them upon their services, the great Em- 
peror being by no means absent. Herr Baedeker says 
that the fresco is there, but I have not succeeded in 
seeing it, for the church is lit only by three small 
cupolas and is dark with religious dusk. 

Within, the Madeleine is a surprise, for it does not 
conform to its fine outward design. One expects a 
classic severity and simplicity, and instead it is paint and 
Italianate curves. The wisest course for the visitor is 
to avoid the steps and the importunate mendicants at 
the railings, and slip in by the little portal on the west 
side where the discreet closed carriages wait. 

Louis XVIII. , with his passion — a very natural one 
— to obliterate Napoleon and the revolutionaries and 
resume monarchical continuity, wished to complete the 
Madeleine as a monument to Louis XVI. and Marie 
Antoinette ; but he did not persevere with the idea. 
He built instead, on the site of the old cemetery of the 
Madeleine, where Louis XVI. and the Queen had been 
buried, the Chapelle Expiatoire. It is their memory 
only which is preserved here, for, after Waterloo, their 
bones were carried to St. Denis, where the other French 



216 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

kings lie. Their statues, however, are enshrined in the 
building (which is just off the Boulevard Haussmann, 
isolated solemnly and impressively among chestnut trees 
and playing children), the king being solaced by an 
angel who remarks to him in the words used by Father 
Edgeworth on the scaffold, "Fils de St. Louis, montez 
le ciel ! " and the queen by religion, personified by 
her sister-in-law, Madame Elizabeth. The door-keeper, 
who conducted me as guide, was in raptures over Louis 
XVI. 's lace and the circumstance that he was hewn 
from a single block of marble. I liked his enthusiasm : 
these unfortunate monarchs deserve the utmost that 
sculptor and door-keeper can give them. 

Paris has changed its mind more completely and 
frequently than any city in the world — and no illustra- 
tion of that foible is better than this before us. Con- 
sider the sequence: first the king; then the prisoner; 
then the execution — the body and head being car- 
ried to the nearest cemetery, the Madeleine, where the 
guillotine's victims were naturally flung, and carelessly 
buried. Ten months later the queen's body and head 
follow. (It is said that the records of the Madeleine 
contain an entry by a sexton, which runs in English, 
" Paid seven francs for a cofian for the Widow Capet.") 
That was in 1793. Not until 1815 do they find sepul- 
ture befitting them, and then this chapel rises in their 
honour and they become saints. 

Among other bodies buried here was that of Charlotte 
Corday. Also the Swiss Guards, whom we saw meeting 




LA DENTELLIERE 

JAN VERMEER OF DELFT 

{Louvre) 



MI-CAREME 217 

death at the Tuileries. A strange place, and to-day, 
in a Paris that cares nothing for Capets, a perfect 
example of what might paradoxically be called well- 
kept neglect. 

To me the Madeleine has always a spurious air: 
nothing in it seems quite true. Externally, its Roman 
proportions carry no hint of the Christian religion; 
within, there is a noticeable lack of reverence. Every- 
one walks about, and the Suisses are of the world 
peculiarly and offensively worldly. Standing before the 
altar with its representation of the Magdalen, who gives 
the church its name, being carried to Heaven, it is diffi- 
cult to realise that only thirty-eight years ago this very 
spot was running red with the blood of massacred Com- 
munards. 

I remember the Madeleine most naturally as I saw 
it once at Mi-Careme, from an upper window at Dur- 
and's, after lunch. It was a dull day and the Made- 
leine frowned on the human sea beneath it; for the 
Place before it and the Rue Royale were black with 
people. The portico is always impressive, but I had 
never before had so much time or such excellent oppor- 
tunity to study it and its relief of the Last Judgment, 
an improbable contingency to which few of us were 
giving much thought just then. Not only were the 
steps crowded, but two men had climbed to the green 
roof and were sitting on the very apex of the building. 

The Mi-Careme carnival in Paris, I may say at once, 
is not worth crossing the Channel for. It is tawdry 



218 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

and stupid ; the life of the city is dislocated ; the 
Grands Boulevards are quickly some inches deep in 
confetti, all of which has been discharged into faces and 
even eyes before reaching the ground ; the air is full of 
dust; and the places of amusement are uncomfortably 
crowded. The Lutetian humours of the Latin Quarter 
students and of Montmartre are not without interest for 
a short time, but they become tedious with extraordin- 
ary swiftness and certainty as the morning grows grey. 

Each side of the Madeleine has its flower markets, 
and they share the week between them. Round and 
about Christmas a forest of fir-trees springs -up. At 
the back of the Madeleine omnibuses and trams con- 
verge as at the Elephant. 

For a walk along the Grands Boulevards this temple 
is the best starting-point; but I do not suggest that 
the whole round shall be made. By the Grands Boule- 
vards the precisian would mean the half circle from the 
Madeleine to the Place de la Republique and thence 
to the Place de la Bastille; or even the whole circle, 
crossing the river by the Pont Sully to the Boulevard 
St. Antoine, which cuts right through the Surrey side 
and crosses the river by the Pont de la Concorde and 
so comes to the Rue Royale and the Madeleine again. 
Those are the Grands Boulevards ; but when the term 
is conversationally used it means nothing whatever but 
the stretch of broad road and pavement, of vivid kiosques 
and green branches, between the Madeleine and the Rue 
Richelieu : that is the Grands Boulevards for the flaneur 



BOULEVARD IMANNERS 219 

and the foreigner. All the best cafes to sit at, all the 
prettiest women to stare at, all the most entertaining 
shop windows, are found between these points. 

The prettiest women to stare at ! here I touch on 
a weakness in the life of Paris which there is no doubt 
the Boulevards have fostered. Staring — more than 
staring, a cool cynical appraisement — is one of the 
privileges which the Boulevardier most prizes. I have 
heard it said that he carries staring to a fine art; but 
it is not an art at all, and certainly not fine; it is just 
a coarse and disgusting liberty. It is nothing to him 
that the object of his interest is accompanied by a man ; 
his code ignores that detail; he is out to see and to 
make an impression and nothing will stop him. One 
must not, however, let this ugly practice offend one's 
sensibility too much. Foreigners need not necessarily 
do as the Romans do, but it is not their right to be too 
critical of Rome; and liberty is the very air of the 
Boulevards. Live and let live. If one is g-oinff to be 
annoyed by Paris, one had better stay at home. 

The Grands Boulevards might be called the show- 
rooms of Paris: it is here that one sees the Parisians. 
In London one may live for years and never see a 
Londoner; not because Londoners do not exist, but 
because London has no show-rooms for their display. 
There is no Boulevard in London ; the only streets that 
have a pavement capable of accommodating both spec- 
tators and a real procession of types are deserted, such 
as Portland Place and Kingsway. The English, who 



220 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

conquer and administer the world, dislike space; the 
French, a people at whose alleged want of inches we 
used to mock, rejoice in space. Think of the Champs- 
Elysees and the Bois and then think of Constitution 
Hill and Hyde Park, and you realise the difference. 
Take a mental drive by any of the principal Boulevards 
— from the Madeleine eastward to the Place de la 
Republique and back to the Madeleine again by way 
of the Boulevards de Magenta and Clichy and down the 
Boulevard Malesherbes, and then take a mental drive 
from Hyde Park Corner by way of Piccadilly, the 
Strand, Fleet Street, Cannon Street, Lombard Street, 
Cheapside, Holborn, Oxford Street and Park Lane to 
Hyde Park Corner again and you realise the difference. 
In wet weather in Paris it is possible to walk all day and 
not be splashed. Think of our most fashionable thor- 
oughfare, just by Long's Hotel, when it is raining — our 
Rue de la Paix. The only street in London of which a 
Frenchman would not be ashamed is the Mile End Road. 
At the Taverne Olympia — just past the old houses 
standing back from the pavement, on the left, which 
are built on the wall of the old moat, when this Boule- 
vard really was a bulwark or fortification — at the Tav- 
erne Olympia, upstairs, is one of the few billiard saloons 
in Paris in which exhibition games are continually in 
progress, and in which one can fill many amusing half- 
hours and perhaps win a few louis. Years ago I used 
to frequent the saloon in a basement under the Grand 
Cafe, a few doors east of the Olympia, but it has lost 



THE CHAMPIONS OF FRANCE 221 

some of its prestige. The best play now is at Olympia 
and at Cure's place in the Rue Vivienne. Every day of 
the year, for ever and ever, a billiard match is in pro- 
gress. So you may say is, in the winter, the case in 
London at Burroughs and Watts', or Thurston's, but 
these are very different. In London the match is for a 
large number of points and it may last a week or a fort- 
night. Here there are scores of matches every afternoon 
and evening and the price of admission is a consomma- 
tion. By virtue of one glass of coffee you may sit for 
hours and watch champion of France after champion of 
France lose and win, win and lose. 

The usual game is played by three champions of 
France and is for ten cannons off the red. The names 
of the players, on cards, are first flung on the table, and 
the amateur of sport advances from his seat and stakes 
five francs on that champion of France whom he favours. 
Five francs is the unit. On my first visit, years ago, 
the champion whom I, very unsoundly but not perhaps 
unnaturally, supported, was one Lucas. Poor fellow, 
on that afternoon he did his best, but he never got 
home. The great Marius was too much for him. 
Marius in those days was a very fine player and the 
hero of the saloon at the Grand Cafe. A Southerner 
I should guess ; for I have seen his doubles by the score 
in the cafes of Avignon and Nimes. He was short and 
thick, with a bald head and a large sagacious nose and a 
saturnine smile and a heavy moustache. Winning and 
losing were all one to him, although it is understood 



222 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

that fifty centimes are contributed by each of his backers 
to a champion of France when he brings it off. Marius 
looked down his nose in the same way whatever hap- 
pened. He was no Roberts; he had none of the 
Caesarian masterfulness, none of the Napoleonic deci- 
sion, of that king of men. The French game does not 
lend itself to such commanding excellence, such Alpine 
distinction. The cannon is all : there is none of the 
quiet and magical disappearance of the ball into a 
pocket which makes the English game so fascinating. 

Such was Marius when I first saw him, and quite 
lately I descended to his cellar again and found him 
unaltered, except that he was no longer a master except 
very occasionally, and that he had grown more sardonic. 
I do not wonder at it. It may not be, in Paris, " a lonely 
thing to be champion," as Cashel Byron says, but it 
must be a melancholy thing to be no longer the cham- 
pion that you were. A home of rest for ex-champions 
would draw my guinea at once. 

The ten or eight cannons off the red, I might add, 
are varied now and then. Sometimes' there is a match 
between two players for a hundred points. Sometimes 
three players will see which can first make eight cannons, 
each involving three cushions (trois bandes). This is 
a very interesting game to watch, although it may be 
a concession to decadence. 

We come next to the Rue Scribe, and crossing it, 
are at " Old England," a shop where the homesick may 
buy such a peculiarly English delicacy as marmalade. 



r 



W 



LI 



Mi?^ 



f 



$ 



i,^A 




^f'S 



'J 



*^ 



PANTHEON 

THE RUE DU BIEVRE 
(from the quai de montebello) 



LETTER-BOXES 223 

beneath the shadow of the gigantic Grand Hotel, 
notable not only for its million bedrooms but for mark- 
ing the position of one of the few post offices of Paris 
and also the only shop in the centre of the city which 
keeps a large and civilised stock of Havana cigars. One 
can live without Havana cigars, but post offices are 
a necessity, and in Paris they conceal themselves with 
great success; while, as for letter-boxes, it has been 
described as a city without one. To a Londoner ac- 
customed to the frequent and vivid occurrence at street 
corners of our scar et obelisks, it is so. Quite recently 
I heard of a young Englishman, shy and incorrigibly 
one-languaged, who, during a week in Paris, entrusted 
all his correspondence to a j&re alarm. But, as a matter 
of fact, Paris has letter-boxes in great number, only for 
the most part they are so concealed as to be solely for the 
initiated. Directly one learns that every tobacconist also 
sells stamps and either secretes a letter-box somewhere 
beneath his window, or marks the propinquity of one, 
hfe becomes simple. 

Although normally one never has, in France, even in 
the official receptacle of one of the chief of the Bureaux 
des Postes, any of that confidence that one reposes in 
the smallest wall-box in England ; yet one must perforce 
overcome this distrust or use only pneumatiques. The 
French do not carry ordinary letters very well, but if 
you register them nothing can keep the postman from 
you. A knock like thunder crashes into your dreams, 
and behold he is at your bedside, alert and important, 



224 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

beribboned with red tape, tendering for your signature a 
pen dipped in an inkstand concealed about his person. 
Everyone who goes to France for amusement should 
arrange to receive one registered letter. 

Its letter-boxes may be a trifle farcical, but in its 
facilities given to purchasers of stamps France makes 
England look an uncivilised country. Why it should 
be illegal for anyone but a postal official to supply 
stamps in my own land, I have never been informed, 
nor have any of the objections to the system ever been 
explained away. In France you may get your stamps 
anywhere — from tobacconists for certain ; from waiters 
for certain ; from the newspaper kiosques for certain ; 
and from all tradespeople almost for certain : hence one 
is relieved of the tiresome delays in post offices that are 
incident to English life. But I am inclined to think 
that when it comes to the post office proper, England 
has the advantage. The French post office (when you 
have found it) is always crowded and always overheated ; 
and you remember what I told the men in the Mint. 

To return to the Grand Hotel, I am minded to ex- 
press the wish that something could be done to rid its 
pavement of the sly leering detrimental with an umbrella 
who comes up to the foreigner and offers his services as a 
guide to the night side of Paris. Not until an English- 
man has killed one of these pests will this part of Paris 
be endurable. But from what I have observed I should 
say that few murders are less likely to occur. . . . 

And so we come to the Cafe de la Paix, and turning 



A MUSICAL MUSEUM 225 

to the left, the Opera is before us. The Opera is one 
of the buildings of Paris that are taken for granted. 
We do not look at it much : we think of it as occupy- 
ing the central position, adjacent to Cook's, useful as 
a place of meeting; we buy a seat there occasionally, 
and that is all. And yet it is the largest theatre in 
the world (the work of that Charles Garnier whose 
statue is just outside), and although it is not exactly 
beautiful, its proportions are agreeable; it does not 
obtrude its size (and yet it covers three acres) ; it sits 
very comfortably on the ground, and an incredible 
amount of patient labour and thought went to its 
achievement, as anyone may see by walking round it 
and studying the ornamentation and the statuary, 
among which is Carpeaux's famous lively group "La 
Danse." One very pleasant characteristic of the Opera 
is the modesty with which it announces its perform- 
ances : nothing but a minute poster in a frame, three or 
four times repeated, giving the information to the passer- 
by. Larger posters would impair its superb reserve. 

The Opera has a little museum, the entrance to which 
is in the Rue Auber corner, by the statue of the archi- 
tect (with his plan of the building traced in bronze 
below his bust). This museum is a model of its kind — 
small but very pertinent and personal in character. 
Here are one of Paganini's bows and his rosin box; 
souvenirs of Malibran presented to her by some Vene- 
tian admirers in 1835 ; Berlioz's season ticket for the 
Opera in 1838, and a page of one of his scores; Rossini 
Q 



226 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

in a marble statuette, asleep on his sofa, wearing that 
variety of whisker which we call a Newgate fringe; 
Rossini on his death-bed, drawn by L. Roux, and a page 
of a score and a cup and saucer used by him ; a match- 
box of Gounod's, a page of a score, and his marble bust ; 
Meyerbeer on his death-bed, drawn by Mousseaux, a 
decoration worn by that composer, and a page of his 
score; two of Cherubini's tobacco boxes and a page of 
his score ; Danton's clay caricature of Lizst — all hair 
and legs — at the piano, and a caricature of Lizst play- 
ing the piano while Lablache sings and Habeneck con- 
ducts; a bust of Fanny Cerrito, danseuse, in 1821 — 
with a mischievous pretty face — that Cerrito of whom 
Thomas Ingoldsby rhymed ; and a bust of Emma Livry, 
a danseuse of a later day, who died aged twenty-three 
from injuries received from fire during the repetition 
generale of the "Muette de Portici" on November 15th, 
1862. In a little coffer near by are the remains of the 
clothes the poor creature was wearing at the time. What 
else is there.'* Many busts, among them Delibes the 
composer of " Coppelia," whose grave we shall see in the 
Cimetiere de Montmartre : here bearded and immortal ; 
autograph scores by Verdi, Donizetti, Victor Masse, 
Auber, Spontini (whose very early piano also is here), and 
Herold ; a caricature by Isabey of young Vestris bound- 
ing in mid air, models of scenes of famous operas, and a 
host of other things all displayed easily in a small but 
sufficient room. If all museums were as compact and 
single-minded ! 



CHAPTER XV 

A CHAIR AT THE CAFE DE LA PAIX 

The Green Hour — In the Stalls of Life — National Contrasts and the 
Futility of Drawing Them — The Concierge — The Benefice 
Hunters — The Claque — The Paris Theatre — The Paris Music 
Hall — The Everlasting Joke — The Real French — A Country 
of Energy — A City of Waiters — Ridicule — Women — Cabmen 
— The Levelling of the Tourist — French Intelligence — The 
Chauffeurs — The Paris Spectacle. 



A 



ND now since it is the " green hour " — since it is 
five o'clock — let us take a chair outside the Cafe 
de la Paix and watch the people pass, and meditate, 
here, in the centre of the civilised world, on this wonder- 
ful city of Paris and this wonderful country of France. 
I am not sure but that when all is said it is not these 
outdoor cafe chairs of Paris that give it its highest charm 
and divide it from London with the greatest emphasis. 
There are three reasons why one cannot sit out in this 
way in London: the city is too dirty; the air is rarely 
warm enough ; and the pavements are too narrow. But 
in Paris, which enjoys the equable climate of a continent 
and understands the aesthetic uses of a pavement, and 
burns wood, charcoal or anthracite, it is, when dry, 
always possible; and I, for one, rejoice in the privilege. 
This " green hour " — this quiet recess between five and 

227 



228 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

six in which to sip an aperitif, and talk, and watch the 
world, and anticipate a good dinner — is as characteris- 
tically French as the absence of it is characteristically 
English. The English can sip their beverages too, but 
how diflPerent is the bar at which they stand from the 
comfortable stalls (so to speak) in the open-air theatres 
of the Boulevards in which the French take their ease. 

At every turn one is reminded that these people live 
as if the happiness of this life were the only important 
thing; while if we subtract a frivolous fringe, it may 
be said of the English that (without any noticeable gain 
in such advantages as spirituality confers) they are always 
preparing to be happy but have not yet enough money 
or are not yet quite ready to begin. The Frenchman 
is happy now : the Englishman will be happy to-morrow. 
(That is, at home ; yet I have seen Englishmen in Paris 
gathering honey v/hile they might, with both hands.) 

But the French and English, London and Paris, are 
not really to be compared. London and Paris indeed 
are different in almost every respect, as the capitals of 
two totally and almost inimically different nations must 
be. For a few days the Englishman is apt to think that 
Paris has all the advantages : but that is because he is 
on a holiday; he soon comes to realise that London is 
his home, London knows his needs and supplies them. 
Much as I delight in Paris I would make almost any 
sacrifice rather than be forced to live there ; yet so long 
as inclination is one's only master how pleasant are her 
vivacity and charm. But comparisons between nations 





GIRL'S HEAD 

ECOLE DE FABRIANO 

{Louvre) 



THE TWO NATIONS 229 

are idle. For a Frenchman there is no country like 
France and no city like Paris ; for an Englishman Eng- 
land is the best country and London the most desirable 
city. For a short holiday for an Englishman, Paris is a 
little paradise; for a short holiday for a Frenchman, 
London is a little inferno. 

Each country is the best ; each country has advantages 
over the other, each country has limitations. The 
French may have wide streets and spacious vistas, but 
their matches are costly and won't light; the English, 
even in the heart of London, may be contented with 
narrow and muddy and congested lanes, but their sugar 
at least is sweet. 

The French may have abolished bookmakers from 
their race-courses and may give even a cabman a clean 
napkin to his meals, but their tobacco is a monopoly. 
The English may fill their streets with newspaper posters 
advertising horrors and scandals, but they are permitted 
now and then to forget their vile bodies. The French 
may piously and prettily erect statues of every illus- 
trious child of the State, but their billiard tables are 
still without pockets. London may have a cleaner Tube 
railway system than Paris, but Paris has the advantage 
of no lifts and a correspondence ticket at a trifling cost 
which will take you everywhere, whereas London's Tubes 
belonging to different companies the correspondence is 
expensive. Again with omnibuses, London may have 
more and better, but here again the useful correspond- 
ence system is to be found only in Paris. 



230 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

London may be in darkness for most of the winter 
and be rained upon by soot all the year round ; but at 
any rate the Londoner is master in his own house or 
flat and not the cringing victim of a concierge, as every 
Parisian is. That is something to remember and be 
thankful for. Paris has an atmosphere, and a climate, 
and good food, and attentive waiters, and a cab to every 
six yards of the kerb, and no petty licensing tyrannies, and 
the Champs-Elysees, and immunity from lurid newspaper 
posters, and good coffee, and the Winged Victory and 
Monna Lisa ; but it also has the concierge. At the en- 
trance to every house is this inquisitive censorious janitor 
— a blend in human shape of Cerberus and the Record- 
ing Angel. The concierge knows the time you go out 
and (more serious) the time you come in ; what letters 
and parcels you receive; what visitors, and how long 
they stay. The concierge knows how much rent you 
pay and what you eat and drink. And the worst of it 
is that since the concierge keeps the door and dominates 
the house you must put a good face on it or you will 
lose very heavily. Scowl at the concierge and your life 
will become a harassment: letters will be lost; parcels 
will be delayed ; visitors will be told you are at home ; 
a thousand little vexations will occur. The concierge 
in short is a rod which, you will observe, it is well to kiss. 
The wise Parisian therefore is always amiable, and gener- 
ous too, although in his heart he wishes the whole system 
at the devil. 

And here I ought to say that although one is thus 



THE LONG-SUFFERING PEOPLES 231 

conscious of certain of the defects and virtues of each 
nation, I have no belief whatever in any large inter- 
change of characteristics being possible. Nations I 
think can borrow very little from each other. What 
is sauce for the goose is by no means necessarily sauce 
for the oie, and the meat of an homme can easily be the 
poison of a man. 

The French and the English base life on such differ- 
ent premises. To put the case in a nutshell, we may 
say that the French welcome facts and the English avoid 
them. The French make the most of facts; the Eng- 
lish persuade themselves that facts are not there. The 
French write books and plays about facts, and read and 
go to the theatre to see facts; the English write books 
and plays about sentimental unreality, and read and go 
to the theatre in order to be diverted from facts. The 
French live quietly and resignedly at home among facts ; 
the English exliaust themselves in games and travel and 
frivolity and social inquisitiveness, in order to forget that 
they have facts in their midst. 

One always used to think that the English were the 
most willing endurers of impositions and monopolies; 
but I have come to the conclusion that a people that 
can continue to burn French matches and use French 
ink and blotting-paper, bend before the concierge and 
suffer the claque and the French theatre attendant, 
must be even weaker. Only a people in love with 
slavery would continue to endure the black-bombazined 
harpies who turn the French theatres into infernos, first 



232 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

by their very presence and secondly by their clamour 
for a benefice. They do nothing and they levy a tax 
on it. So far from exterminating them, this absurd 
lenient French people has even allowed them to domin- 
ate the cinematoscope halls which are now so numerous 
all over Paris. I sit and watch them and wonder what 
they do all day: in what dark corner of the city they 
hang like bats till the evening arrives and they are 
free to poison the air of the theatres and exact their 
iniquitous secret commission. The habit of London 
managers to charge sixpence for a programme — an 
advertisement of his wares such as every decent and 
courteous tradesman is proud to give away — is suflS- 
ciently monstrous ; but I can never enough honour them 
for excluding these benefice hunters. 

Whatever may be said of French acting and French 
plays, there is no doubt that our theatres are more com- 
fortable and better managed. A Frenchman visiting a 
theatre in London has no difficulties : he buys his seat 
at the office, is shown to it and the matter ends. An 
Englishman visiting a theatre in Paris has no such ease. 
He must first buy his ticket (and let him scrutinise the 
change with some care and despatch) ; this ticket, how- 
ever, does not, as in London, carry the number of his 
seat: it is merely a card of introduction to the three 
gentlemen in evening dress and tall hats who sit side by 
side in a kind of pulpit in the lobby. One of them 
takes his ticket, another consults a plan and writes a 
number on it, and the third hands it back. Another 



THE CLAQUE 233 

diflSculty has yet to come, for now begins the turn of 
the harpies. Why the Enghsh custom is not followed, 
and a clean sweep made of both the men in the pulpit 
and the women inside, one has no notion ; for in addi- 
tion to being a nuisance they must reduce the profits. 

I mentioned the claque just now. That is another 
of the Frenchman's darling bugbears which the English 
would never stand. Every Frenchman to whom I have 
spoken about it shares my view that it is an abomina- 
tion, but when I ask why it is not abolished he merely 
shrugs his shoulders : " Why should it be ? — one can 
endure it," is the attitude; and that indeed is the 
Frenchman's attitude to most of the things that he finds 
objectionable. They are, after all, only trimmings ; the 
real fabric of his life is not injured by them ; there- 
fore let them go on. Yet while one can understand the 
persistence of certain Parisian defects, the long life of 
the claque remains a mystery. Upon me the periodical 
and mechanical explosions of this body of hirelings have 
an effect little short of infuriation. One is told that 
the actors are responsible rather than the managers, and 
this makes its continuance the more unreasonable, for 
the result has been that in their efforts to acquire the 
illusion of applause, they have lost the real thing. 
French audiences rarely clap any more. 

When it comes to the consideration of the French 
stage, there is again no point in making comparisons. 
It is again a conflict of fact and sentiment. The 
French are intensely interested in the manifestations of 



234 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

the sexual emotion, and they have no objection to see 
the calamities and embarrassments and humours to 
which it may lead worked out frankly on the boards or in 
literature: hence a certain sameness in their plays and 
novels. The majority of the English still think that 
physical matters should be hidden : hence our dramatists 
and novelists having had to find other themes, adventure, 
eccentricity and character have won their predominant 
place. That is all there is to it. The French stage is 
the best — to a Frenchman or a gallicised Englishman ; 
the English stage is the best — to the English. The 
English go rather to see ; the French to hear. In other 
words a blind Frenchman would be better pleased with 
his national stage than a blind Englishman with his. 
The blind Frenchman would at any rate not miss the 
jokes, which, though he knew them all before, he could 
not resist; whereas the Englishman would be deprived 
of the visible touches of which the personse of our drama 
are largely built up. In a drama of passion, whether 
treated seriously or lightly, words necessarily are more 
than idiosyncrasies. 

In the Paris music halls the comic singers merely 
sing — they have little but words to give. London 
music hall audiences may have an undue affection for 
red noses and sordid domestic details; but they do 
expect a little character, even if it is coarse character, 
during the evening, and they get it. There is little in 
the French hall. Personality is discouraged here ; rich- 
ness, quaintness, unction, irresponsibility, eccentricity 




LA BliN^DICIT^ 

CHARDIN 

{Louvre) 



COMPERE AND COMMERE 235 

— such gifts as once pleased us in Dan Leno and now are 
to be found in a lesser degree but very agreeably in 
Wilkie Bard — these are superfluities to a French comic 
singer. All that is asked of him is that he shall be 
active, shall have a resonant voice and shall commit to 
memory a sufficient number of cynical reflections on life. 
A gramophone producing any rapid indecent song would 
please the French more than a hundred Harry Landers. 
(And yet when all is said it must be far easier to live in a 
country where decency, as we understand and painfully 
cultivate it, has not everywhere to be considered. The 
life at any rate of the French author, publisher, editor and 
magistrate, to name no others, is immensely simplified.) 
But from my point of view the worst characteristic 
of the French music hall and variety stage is the revue. 
The revue is indeed a standing proof of the incontro- 
vertible fact that however the hotel proprietors may 
feel about it, the Parisian does not want English people 
in his midst. (Why should he.^^) The revue in its 
quiddity is a device for excluding foreigners from 
theatres; for it is not only dull and monotonous, but 
being for the most part a satire on Parisian politics is 
incomprehensible too. I am not here to defend the 
English pantomime, but not all its agonies (as Ruskin 
called them) reach such a height of tedium as a revue 
can achieve. A Frenchman ignorant of English at 
Drury Lane on Boxing Night might be bewildered and 
even stunned ; but he would at any rate know something 
of what was happening and his eyes would be kept busy. 



236 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

An Englisliman at a revue knows nothing, for there is 
no story and very httle money is spent on the stage 
picture : it is just a steady cataract of topical talk. I 
have endured many revues, always hoping against hope 
that someone would be witty or funny, that some in- 
genious satirical device would occur. But I have never 
been rewarded. No matter what the nominal subject, 
the jokes have been the same: the old old mots a 
double entente, the old old outspoken indecency. . . o 

The stream of people continues to be incessant and 
of incredible density — all walking at the same pace, all 
talking as only the French can talk, rich and poor 
equally owners of the pavement. Now and then a 
camelot offers a toy or a picture postcard; boys bring 
La Patrie or La Presse; a performer bends and twists 
a piece of felt into every shape of hat, culminating in 
Napoleon's famous chapeau a cornes. . . . 

One thing that one notices is the absence of laughter. 
The French laugh aloud very seldom. Even in their 
theatres, at the richest French jokes, their approval is 
expressed rather in a rippling murmur counterfeiting 
surprise than a laugh. Animation one sees, but on 
these Boulevards behind that is often a suggestion of 
anxiety. The dominant type of face seen from a chair 
at the Cafe de la Paix is not a happy one. . . . 

It is when one watches this restless moving crowd, or 
the complacent audiences at the farces, or the diners in 
restaurants eating as if it were the last meal, and when 
one looks week after week at the comic papers of Paris, 



THE ENERGY OF FRANCE 237 

with their deadly insistence on the one and apparently 
only concern of Parisian life, that one has most of all to 
remind oneself that these people are not the French, and 
that one is a superficial tourist in danger of acquiring 
very wrong impressions. This is the fringe, the froth. 
One has only to remember a very few of the things we 
have seen in Paris to realise the truth of this. Never 
was a harder-working people. Look at the early hours 
that Paris keeps : contrast them with London's slovenly 
awakening. Look at the amazing productivity of a 
notoriously idle and careless set — the artists : the old 
Salon with its miles of pictures twice a year, and the 
other Salons, hardly less crowded, and the minor exhi- 
bitions too. Look at the industry of the Paris stage: 
the new plays that are produced every week, involving 
endless rehearsals day and night. Look at the energy 
of the French authors, dramatic as well as narrative, of 
the journalists and printers. Think of the engineers, 
the motor-car manufacturers, the gardeners and the 
vintners. Think of the bottle-makers. (But one can- 
not : such a thought causes the head to reel in this city 
of bottles.) No, we are not seeing France, we foreign 
visitors to "the gay capital." Don't let us labour 
under any such mistake. The industrious, level-headed, 
cheerful French people do not exliibit themselves to the 
scrutinising eyes of the Cafe de la Paix, do not spend 
all their time as Le Rire would have us believe, do not 
over eat and over drink. 
Around and about one all the time, as one watches 



238 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

this panorama, the swift and capable waiters are busy. 
Everyone carries away from Paris one mastering im- 
pression upon the inward eye: I am not sure that 
mine is not a blur of waiters in their long white aprons. 
At the Paris Exhibition of 1900, over the principal 
entrance at the south-west corner of the Place de la 
Concorde, was the gigantic figure of a young and 
fashionable woman in the very heyday of her vivacity, 
allurement and smartness. She personified Paris. But 
not so would I symbolise that city. In any coat of arms of 
Paris that I designed would certainly be a capable young 
woman,but also a waiter, sleek, attentive and sympathetic. 

Paris may be a city of feminine charm and domina- 
tion; but to the ordinary foreigner, and especially the 
Englishman, it is far more a city of waiters. Women we 
have in England too : but waiters we have not. There 
are waiters in London, no doubt, but that is the end of 
them : there are, to all intents and purposes, no waiters 
in the provinces, where we eat exclusively in our own 
houses. And even in London we must brace ourselves 
to find such waiters as there are: we must indulge in 
heroic feats of patience, and, once the waiter comes into 
view, exercise most of the vocal organs to attract his 
notice and obtain his suffrages. In other words, there 
is in London perhaps one waiter to every five thousand 
persons; whereas in Paris there are five thousand 
waiters, more or less, to every one person. Or so it 
seems. It is a city of waiters ; it is the city of waiters. 

Still the people stream by, and one wonders whence 
the idea comes that the French are a particularly 



STREET TYPES 239 

small race. It is not true. Look at that tall boulevar- 
dier with someone else's hat (why do so many French- 
men seem to be wearing other men's hats ?) and the 
immense beard. Look at those two long-haired artists 
from the Latin Quarter, in velvet clothes and black 
sombreros. In England they would be stared at and 
laughed at; but here no one is laughed at at all, and 
only the women are stared at. It is interesting to 
note how little street ridicule there is in France. The 
Frenchman mocks, but he does not, as I think so many 
of the English do, search for the ridiculous; or at any 
rate it is not the same kind of ridiculousness that we 
pillory. In England we bring such sandpaper of preju- 
dice and public opinion to bear upon eccentricity that 
everyone becomes smooth and ordinary — like every- 
one else. But in France — to the superficial observer, 
at any rate — individuality is encouraged and nourished; 
in France either no one is ridiculous or everyone is. 

Someone once remarked to me that never in Paris 
do you see a woman with any touch of the woods. It 
is true. The Parisian women suggest the boudoir, the 
theatre, the salon, the sewing-room, the kitchen, and 
now and then even the fields ; but never the woods. . . . 

One misses also in Paris the boy of from fifteen to 
eighteen. Younger boys there are, and young men 
abound, but youths of that age one does not much see, 
and very rarely indeed a father and son together. In 
fact the generations seem to mix very little: in the 
restaurants men of the same age are usually together: 
beards lunch with beards. . . . 



240 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

And the road is dense too. There is a block every 
few minutes, while the agents in the centre of the 
carrefour do their best to control the four streams of 
traffic. It is odd that a people with so much sense of 
order and red tape should fail so signally to produce an 
organiser of traffic. Certain it is that the stupidest 
Kentish giant who joins the Metropolitan police force 
has a better idea of such a duty than any of these 
polished gentlemen in caps. Partly perhaps because in 
London the police are feared and obeyed, and in Paris 
the drivers, particularly the cabmen, care for no one. 
The words Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite are not stencilled 
all over our churches and public buildings, you see. 

The cabmen ! My impression now is, writing here in 
England, that the Paris cochers are all exactly alike. 
They have white hats and blue coats and bad horses 
and black moustaches, and their backs entirely fill the 
landscape. Also one seldom sees an accident, although 
they never look as if they were going to avoid one. 
That is partly because they are a weary and cynical 
folk, and partly because in France the roads belong to 
vehicles, and not, as in England, to foot-passengers. In 
England if you are run over you can prosecute the 
driver and get damages ; in France if you are run over 
the driver (one has always heard) can prosecute you for 
being in the way. 

One very comfortable trait of the Parisian cocher is 
his readiness to go anywhere, no matter how far or diffi- 
cult ; but he never seems so ready as when one directs 
him to the Place Pigalle or Place Blanche on Mont- 



THE COCHER 241 

martre, or even the Moulin de la Galette on its most 
precipitous slope, nor does his forlorn steed ever show 
more alacrity than in breasting this acclivity. 

No matter with what fervour is the entente fostered 
and nourished, the Parisian cabman will see to it that 
the hatchet is never too deeply interred, that the racial 
excrescences are not too smoothly planed. Polite hotel 
managers, obsequious restaurateurs, smiling sommeliers 
and irradiated shopkeepers may do their best to assure 
the Anglo-Saxon that he is among a people that exist 
merely to do him honour and adore his personality ; but 
directly he hails a cab he knows better. The truth is 
then his. Not that the Parisian cocher hates a foreigner. 
Nothing so crude as that. He merely is possessed by a 
devil of contempt that prompts him to humiliate and 
confound us. To begin with he will not appear to want 
you as a fare ; he will make it a favour to drive you at 
all. He will then begin his policy of humorous pin- 
pricks. Though you speak with the accent of Mounet- 
Sully himself he will force you to pronounce the name 
of your destination not once but many times, and then 
very likely he will drive you somewhere else first. You 
may step into his cab with a feeling that Paris is becom- 
ing a native city : you will emerge wishing it at the bottom 
of the sea. That is the cocher's special mission in life — 
subtly and insidiously to humiliate the tourist. He does 
it like an artist and as an artist — for his own pleasure. 
It is the only compensation that his dreary life carries. 

The French, I fancy, are not less capable of stupidity 



242 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

than any other people. There is an idea current that 
they are the most inteUigent of races, but I beheve this 
to be a fallacy, proceeding from the fact that the French 
language lends itself to epigrammatic expression, and 
that every French child dips his cup into the com- 
mon reservoir of engaging idioms and adroit phrases. 
This means that French conversation, even among the 
humblest, is better than English conversation under 
similar and far more favourable conditions ; but it means 
no more. It gives no real intelligence. The incapacity 
of the ordinary Frenchman to get enough imagination 
into his ear (so fine that it can distinguish between the 
most delicate vowel sounds in his own language) to en- 
able it to understand a foreign pronunciation is partly a 
proof of this. But take him at any time off his regular 
lines, present a new idea to him, and he can be as stupid 
as a Sussex farm labourer. It is the same with America. 
Just as the French language imposes wit on its user, so is 
every American, man or woman, fitted at birth with the 
mechanism of humour. Yet how few are humorous ! 
But the cocher is not the only cabman of Paris: 
there remains the driver of the auto. The motor cab 
has not elbowed out the horse cab in Paris as it has in 
London, nor probably will it, for the Parisians are not 
in a hurry; but for Longchamp and such excursions 
the auto is indispensable, and the motor cabman be- 
comes more and more a characteristic of the streets. 
Our London chauffeurs are sufficiently implacable, 
blunt and churlish, but the Parisian chauffeur is like 
fate. There is no escape if you enter his car : he lights 



THE CHAUFFEUR 243 

his cigarette, sinks his back into his seat, and his 
shoulders into his back, and his head into his shoulders, 
and drives like the devil. He seems to have no life of 
his own at all : he exists merely to urge his car wherever 
he is told. The foreigner has no hold whatever upon 
the chauffeur ; he arranges the meter to whatever tariff 
he pleases, and before you can examine the dial at the 
end of the journey he has jerked up the flag. When you 
keep him waiting his meter devours your substance. 
Always terrible, he is worst in winter, when he is dressed 
entirely in hearth-rugs. The old cocher for me. 

But it grows chilly and it is dinner time. Let us go. 
Yet first I would remind you that we chose the Cafe de 
la Paix for our reverie only because it is the centre, and 
we were intent upon the centre. But the pavement 
chairs of all the cafes of Paris are interesting, and it is 
equally good to sit in any populous bourgeois quarter 
where one can watch the daily indigenous life of this city, 
which the visitor who remains for the most part in the 
visitors' districts can so easily miss. The busy, capable 
girls and women shopping — their pretty uncovered 
heads all so neatly and deftly arranged, and their bags 
and baskets in their hands ; the chair mender blowing 
his horn ; the teams of white horses, six or eight in single 
file, with high collars and bells, drawing blocks of stone 
or barrels of wine; the tondeur de chiens, with his 
mournful pipe and box of scissors ; the brisk errand boys ; 
the neat little milliners with their band-boxes ; now and 
then a slovenly soldier and a well-groomed erect agent. 
Paris as a spectacle is perpetually new and amusing. 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE GRANDS BOULEVARDS: II. THE OPERA TO THE 
PLACE DE LA REPUBLIQUE 

The Christmas Baraques — The Rue de la Chaussee d'Antin — The 
Rue Laffitte — • La Musee Grevin — The Bibliotheque Nationale — 
The Roar of Finance — Tailors as Cartoonists — A Bee-hive Street 

— Cities within the City — Pompes Funebres — The Church as Ad- 
vertiser • — The Great Marguery — Gates which are not Gates — 
The Life of St. Denis — Highways from Paris — The First Theatre 

— Martin's Act of Charity — The Arts et Metiers; a Modern Cluny 

— Statues of the Republic. 



IT^ROM the Place de I'Opera to the Place de la Re- 
} pubiique is an interesting and instructive walk, 
but at no time of the day a very easy one ; and between 
five o'clock and half-past six, and eight and ten, on the 
north pavement, it is always almost a struggle ; but when 
the baraques are in full swing around Christmas and the 
New Year, it is a struggle in earnest, at any rate as far 
as the Rue Drouot. Indeed Christmas and New Year, 
but especially Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve, are 
great times in France, and presents are exchanged as 
furiously as with us. 

On Christmas Eve — Reveillon as it is called — no 
one would do anything so banal as to go to bed. The re- 
staurants obtain a special permission to remain open, 

244 



A FREE GALLERY 245 

and tables are reserved months in advance. Mont- 
martre, never very sleepy, takes on a double share of 
wakefulness. 

The first street on our left, the Rue de la Chaussee 
d'Antin, is one of the busiest in Paris, with excellent 
shops and many interesting associations. Madame 
Recamier lived at No. 7, the site of the Hotel d'Antin. 
So also did Madame Necker and Madame Roland, and 
for a while Edward Gibbon. Chopin lived at No. 5. 
This street, by the way, has suffered almost more than 
any other from the Parisian fickleness in nomenclature. 
It began as the Rue de la Chaussee Gaillon, then Rue 
de I'Hotel Dieu, then Rue de la Chaussee d'Antin, from 
Richelieu's Hotel d'Antin, then the Rue Mirabeau, from 
the revolutionary who lodged and died at No. 42, then, 
when Mirabeau's body was removed ignominiously from 
the Pantheon, the Rue Mont Blanc, and in 1815 it be- 
came once again the Rue de la Chaussee d'Antin. 

// At the foot of the Rue Laffitte one should stop, be- 
cause one gets there a glimpse of Montmartre's white 
and oriental cathedral, hanging in mid air high above 
Paris and the church of Notre Dame de Lorette. This 
street is, to me, one of the most entertaining in the city, 
for almost every other shop is a picture-dealer's, and to 
loaf along it, on either side, is practically to visit a gal- 

i1 lery. Two or three of these shops keep as a continual 
sign the words " Bronzes de Barye." The Rue Lafiitte 
was named after the banker Jacques Lafiitte> whose bank 
was in the Rue de la Chaussee d'Antin. Cerutti, who 
delivered Mirabeau's funeral oration, set up his revolu- 



246 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

tionaiy journal La Feuille Villageoise here. At the 
Hotol Thehisson at the end of the street the Incroyables 
and the Merveilleuses assembled. Among the guests 
was General Buonaparte, and it was here that he first 
met Josephine Beauharnais. 

The Musee Grevin, to which we soon come on the 
left, is the Parisian Tussaud's ; and it is as much better 
than Tussaud's as one would expect it to be. Tussaud's 
is vast and brilliant; the Musee Grevin is small and 
mysterious. There is so little light that everyone seems 
wax, and one has to look very narrowly and anxiously 
at all motionless figures. The particular boast of the 
Grevin is its groups: not so much the Pope and his 
pontifical cortege, the coulisses of the Opera (a scene of 
coryphees and men about town) and the Fete d'Artistes, 
as the admirable tableaux of the Revolution. To the 
untutored eye of one who, like myself, avoids waxworks, 
the Grevin figures and grouping are good and, what is 
perhaps more important, intelligent. Pains have been 
taken to make costumes and accessories historically ac- 
curate, and in many cases the actual articles have been 
employed, notably in the largest tableau of all — " Une 
Soiree a Malmaison" — which was arranged under the 
supervision of Frederic Masson, the historian, an effigy 
of whom stands near by. Among these scenes the his- 
torical sense of the French child can be really quickened. 
There are also tableaux of Rome in the time of the early 
Christians — very clever and painful. 

At the Rue Drouot, at the conjunction of the Boule- 




MADAME LE BRUN ET SA FILLE 

MADAME LE BRUN 

i^Lo7ivre) 



THE BIBLIOTHEQUE 247 

vards des Italiens and de Montmartre, there is an angle. 
Hitherto we have been walking west by north ; we now 
shall walk west by south. From this point we shall also 
observe a difference in the character of the street, which 
will become steadily more bourgeois. At this corner, 
where the traffic is always so congested, owing largely 
to the omnibuses with the three white horses abreast 
that cross to and from the Rue Richelieu, all the best 
cafes are behind us. 

If that .£32,000,000 reconstruction scheme of which I 
have already spoken comes to pass, this point will be un- 
recognisable, for among the items in that programme is 
the uniting of the Boulevard Haussmann, which now 
comes to an abrupt end at the Rue Taitbout, with the 
Boulevard de Montmartre, which, as a glance at the 
map will show, is in a line with it. But my hope is that 
the improvement will be long deferred. 

It is in the Rue Richelieu that the Bibliotheque 
Nationale stands, where the foreign resident in Paris 
may read every day, precisely as at the British Museum, 
provided always that he is certified by his Consul to be 
worthy of a ticket, and the visitor may on certain days 
examine priceless books and autographs, prints and maps 
and cameos and wonderful antiquities. Here once lived 
Cardinal Mazarin, and it is in the galerie that bears his 
name that the rarest bindings are to be seen — some 
from Grolier's own shelves. Among the MSS. is that 
of Pascal's Pensees. The library, which is now perhaps 
the finest in existence, has been built up steadily by the 



248 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

kings of France, even from Charlemagne, but Louis 
XII. was the first of them who may really be called a 
bibliophile, to be worthily followed by Fran9ois I. It 
was not until 1724, in the reign of Louis XV., that the 
royal collection was removed to this building. The 
Revolution greatly added to its wealth by transferring 
hither the libraries of the destroyed convents and mon- 
asteries. The treasures in the Cabinet de Medailles I 
cannot describe; all I can say is that they ought not 
to be missed. They may be called an extension of the 
Galerie d'Apollon in the Louvre. 

Before leaving the Bibliotheque I should add that in 
certain of its rooms, with an enti-ance in the Rue Vivienne, 
exhibitions are periodically held, and it is worth while to 
ascertain if one is in progress. In the spring of 1908 1 saw 
there a most satisfying display of Rembrandt's etchings. 

It was in one of the old book shops in the neigh- 
bourhood of the Bibliotheque that I received my first 
impression of the Paris Bourse. I was turning over 
little pocket editions of Voltaire's Pucelle and naughty 
Crebillons and such ancient boudoir fare, when I began 
to be conscious of a sound as of a thousand boys' schools 
in deadly rivalry. On hurrying out to learn the cause 
I found Paris in its usual condition of self-containment 
and intent progress ; no one showed any sign of inquis- 
itiveness or excitement; but on the steps of the Bourse 
I observed a shouting, gesticulating mob of men who 
must, I thought, be planning a new Reign of Terror. 
But no; they were merely financiers engaged in the 



THE THUNDER OF THE BOURSE 249 

ordinary work of life. The Bourse is free, and I climbed 
the steps, pushed through the money-makers, and en- 
tered. Never again. I have seen men engaged in the 
unlovely task of acquiring lucre by more or less improper 
means in various countries, but I never saw anything so 
horrible as the rapacity expressed upon the faces of this 
heated Bourse populace. 

Capel Court is not indifferent to the advantages of a 
successful coup, but Capel Court differs from the Bourse 
not only in a comparative retention of its head, but also 
in a certain superficial appearance of careless aristocracy. 
Capel Court dresses well and keeps time for a practical 
joke now and then. The Bourse is shabby and in the 
grip of avarice. Wall Street and the Chicago pit, I am 
told, are worse: I have not seen them; but no race- 
course scramble for odds could exceed the horrors of that 
day in the Bourse. The home, by the way, of this daily 
vociferous service of Mammon was built on the site of 
the old convent of the Filles de St. Thomas. During 
the Revolution the connection between the Bourse and 
Heaven was even closer, for the church of the Petits 
Peres was then set apart for Exchange purposes. 

Returning to the point where we left the Boulevard 
— at the Rue Richelieu — I am moved to ask what 
would happen in London if Messrs. Baker in the Totten- 
ham Court Road or Messrs. Gardiner in Knightsbridge 
were suddenly to break out into caricature and embellish 
their windows with scarifying cartoons of Kings, Kaisers, 
Presidents and Premiers ? The question may sound odd. 



250 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

but it is simple enough if you visit the High Life tailor 
at the corner of the Rue Richelieu, or, farther east, a 
similar establishment at the corner of the Rue de Rouge- 
mont, for it then becomes obvious that it is quite part 
of the duties of the large Parisian clothier to do his part 
in forming public opinion. These cartoons are always 
bold and clever, although often too municipal for the 
foreigner's apprehension. 

I have said somewhere that one of my favourite streets 
in Paris is the Rue Montorgeuil. That is largely, as I 
have explained, because it is old and narrow, and the 
people swarm in it, and the stalls are so many, and the 
houses are high and white and take the sun so bravely, 
and it smells of Paris ; and also, of course, because the 
Compas d'Or is here, bringing the middle ages so nigh. 
Another favourite is the Rue du Faubourg-de-Mont- 
martre (which is now the next on the left eastward) for 
its busy happy shops and its moving multitudes. In its 
own narrow way it is almost as crowded as the Grands 
Boulevards. 

A little way up this street, on the right, is a gateway 
leading into a very curious backwater, as noticeably quiet 
as the highways are noisy and restless : the Cite Bergere, 
the largest of those cites within a cite of which Paris has 
several, to be compared in London only with St. Helen's 
Place in Bishopsgate or Park Row at Knightsbridge. 
The Cite Bergere is practically nothing but hotels — 
high and narrow, with dirty white walls and dirty green 
shutters — very cheap, and very incurious as to the occu- 



POMPES FUNEBRES 251 

pations of their guests, whether male or female. It has a 
gate at each end which is closed at night and penetrated 
thereafter only at the goodwill of the concierge, whom 
it is well to placate. The Cite Bergere leads into the 
Cite Rougemont (hence offering an opportunity to an 
innkeeper between the two to hang out the imposing 
sign of the Hotel des Deux Cites), and from the Cite 
Rougemont you gain that district of Paris where the 
woollen merchants congregate. 

Returning to the Grands Boulevards, the next street 
on the left is the Rue Rougemont, and if we take this 
we come in a few moments to the Conservatoire, where 
so many famous musicians have been taught, and where 
Coquelin and Sarah Bernhardt learned the art of elocu- 
tion. There is a little museum at the Conservatoire in 
which every variety of musical instrument is preserved, 
together with a few personal relics, such as a cast of 
Paganini's nervous magical hand, with its long sharply 
pointed fingers, and the death-mask of Chopin. 

Close to the Conservatoire is the darkest church in 
Paris — Saint Eugene, a favourite spot for funeral ser- 
vices. I chanced once to stay in a room overlooking 
this church, until the smell of mortality became too 
constant. There was a funeral every day : every morn- 
ing the undertakers' men were busy in the preparations 
for the ceremony — draping the fa9ade with heavy cur- 
tains of a blackness that seemed to darken the circum- 
ambient air : every afternoon removing it, together with 
the other trappings of the ritual — the candlesticks and 



252 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

furniture. It is not without reason that the French 
undertaker ambushes beneath the imposing style of 
Pompes Funebres. 

It was, by the way, on the walls of Saint Eugene, 
each side of the door, that I first saw any of those 
curious afSches, made, I suppose, necessary, or at any 
rate prudent, by recent events in France, directing notice 
to — advertising, I almost wrote, and indeed why not ? — 
the advantages of religion. Religion (this is what the 
notice came to in essence), religion has its points after all. 
When President Fallieres' daughter was married, it re- 
marked, where was the ceremony performed .'' In a church. 
(Ha Ha !) Who, it asked, is called to visit a man on his 
death-bed, no matter how wicked he has been ? A priest. 
(Touche !) And so forth. Surely a strange document. 

In the same street is an old book-stall whose shelves 
are fastened to the wall, giving the appearance of an 
open-air library for all — the Carnegie idea at its best. 
There used to be one on the side of the Hotel Chatham 
in the Rue Volney (opposite Henry's excellent American 
Bar) but it has now gone. 

We may regain the Boulevards by turning down the 
long Rue du Faubourg Poissoniere, which leads direct, 
through the Rue Montorgeuil, to the Halles and the 
Pont Neuf — a very good walk. Passing Marguery's 
great restaurant on the left, famous for its filet de sole 
in a special sauce, which everyone should eat once if 
only to see the great Marguery on his triumphant pro- 
gress through the rooms, bending his white mane over 



ST. DENIS 253 

honoured guests, we come to a strange thing — a massive 
archway in the road, parallel with the pavements, which 
I think needs a little explanation. It will take us far 
from the Grands Boulevards : as far, in fact, as The 
Golden Legend; for the arch is the Porte St. Denis, and 
St. Denis is the patron saint of Paris. 

St. Denis was not a Frenchman but an Athenian, 
who was converted by St. Paul in person, after consider- 
able discussion. Indeed, discussion was not enough : it 
needed a miracle to win him wholly. "And as," wrote 
Caxton, "S. Denis disputed yet with S. Paul, there 
passed by adventure by that way a blind man tof ore them, 
and anon Denis said to Paul : If thou say to this blind 
man in the name of thy God : See, and then he seeth, I 
shall anon believe in him, but thou shalt use no words 
of enchantment, for thou mayst haply know some words 
that have such might and virtue. And S. Paul said : 
I shall write tofore the form of the words, which be 
these : In the name of Jesu Christ, born of the virgin, 
crucified and dead, which arose again and ascended into 
heaven, and from thence shall come for to judge the 
world : See. And because that all suspicion be taken 
away, Paul said to Denis that he himself should pro- 
nounce the words. And when Denis had said those 
words in the same manner to the blind man, anon the 
blind man recovered his sight. And then Denis was 
baptized and Damaris his wife and all his meiny, and 
was a true Christian man and was instructed and taught 
by S. Paul three years, and was ordained bishop of 



254 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

Athens, and there was in predication, and converted that 
city, and great part of the region, to christian faith." 

Denis was sent to France by Pope Clement, and he 
converted many Parisians and built many churches, 
until the hostile strategy of the Emperor Domitian pre- 
vailed and he was tortured, the scene of the tragedy 
being Montmartre. " The day following," says Caxton, 
"Denis was laid upon a gridiron, and stretched all 
naked upon the coals of fire, and there he sang to our 
Lord saying: Lord thy word is vehemently fiery, and 
thy servant is embraced in the love thereof. And after 
that he was put among cruel beasts, which were excited 
by great hunger and famine by long fasting, and as 
soon as they came running upon him he made the sign 
of the cross against them, and anon they were made 
most meek and tame. And after that he was cast into a 
furnace of fire, and the fire anon quenched, and he had 
neither pain ne harm. And after that he was put on 
the cross, and thereon he was long tormented, and after, 
he was taken down and put into a dark prison with his 
fellows and many other Christian men. 

"And as he sang there the mass and communed the 
people, our Lord appeared to him with great light, and 
delivered to him bread, saying: Take this, my dear 
friend, for thy reward is most great with me. After 
this they were presented to the judge and were put 
again to new torments, and then he did do smite off 
the heads of the three fellows, that is to say, Denis, 
Rusticus, and Eleutherius, in confessing the name of 
the holy Trinity. And this was done by the temple of 



A GREAT HIGHWAY 255 

Mercury, and they were beheaded with three axes. And 
anon the body of St. Denis raised himself up, and bare 
his head between his arms, as the angel led him two 
leagues from the place, which is said the hill of the 
martyrs, unto the place where he now resteth, by his 
election, and by the purveyance of God. And there 
was heard so great and sweet a melody of angels that 
many of them that heard it believed in our Lord." 

Anyone making the pilgrimage from, say, Notre 
Dame to the town of St. Denis to-day, can follow the 
saint's footsteps, for the Rue St. Denis at the foot of 
Montmartre leads out into the Rue du Faubourg St. 
Denis, and that street right over Montmartre, Caxton's 
hill of the martyrs, to St. Denis itself. I do not pretend 
that the legend as it is thus given has not been sub- 
jected to severe criticism ; but when one has no certain 
knowledge, the best story can be considered the best 
evidence, and I like Caxton better than the others, even 
though it conflicts a little with the legend of St. 
Genevieve. It is she, I might add, who is credited with 
having inaugurated the pilgrimage to St. Denis' bones. 

The Rue St. Denis was more than the road to the 
saint's remains : it was the great north road out of Paris 
to the sea. Just as the old Londoners bound for the 
north left by the City Road and passed through the 
village of Highgate, so did the French traveller leave 
by the Rue St. Denis and pass through the village of 
St. Denis. Similarly the Rue St. Martin was the high- 
road to Germany. In the old days, when this street 
was a highway, the Porte St. Denis had some meaning, 



QoQ A WANDERER IN PARIS 

for it stood as a gateway between the city and the 
country; but to-day, when the course of traffic is east 
and west, it stands (like the Porte St. Martin) merely as 
an obstruction in the Grand Boulevard — not quite so 
foolish as our own revised Marble Arch, but nearly 
so. The Porte St. Denis dates from 1673 and cele- 
brates, as the bas-reliefs indicate, the triumphs of 
Louis XIV. in Germany and Holland ; the Porte 
St. Martin (to which we are just coming) belongs to 
the same period and commemorates other successes of 
the same monarch. 

The Rue St. Denis is one of the most entertaining 
of the old streets of Paris, although adulterated a little 
by omnibuses and a sense of commerce. But to have 
boundless time before one, and no cares, and no fatigue, 
and starting at the Porte St. Denis to loiter along it 
prepared to penetrate every inviting court and alluring 
by-street — that is a great luxury. The first theatre in 
Paris, and indeed in France, was in the Hospital of the 
Trinity in the Rue St. Denis. That was early in the 
fifteenth century, and it was designed for the perform- 
ance of Mystery plays in which the protagonist was, of 
course, Jesus Christ. Paris has now many theatres, 
with other ideals ; but whatever their programmes may 
be, they proceed from that early and pious spring. 

We come next to the Boulevard de Strasbourg, run- 
ning north to the Gare de I'Est, and the Boulevard 
de Sebastopol, running south to the He de la Cite; 
and then to the second archway, the Porte St. Martin. 



ST. MARTIN 257 

St. Martin (who was Bishop of Tours) lived in Paris for 
a while, and it was here that he performed the miracle 
of healing a leper by embracing him — an act commem- 
orated by Henri I. in the founding of the Priory of St. 
Martin, which stood a little way down the Rue St. 
Martin on the left, on a site on which the Musee des 
Arts et Metiers now stands. But it was at Amiens 
that the saint's most beautiful act — the gift of his cloak 
to a beggar — was performed, and perhaps I may be 
allowed to quote here, from another book of mine, the 
translation of a poem by M. Haraucourt, the curator of 
the Cluny museum, celebrating that deed : — 

CHARITY 

Because so bitter was the rain, 
Saint Martin cut his cloak in twain. 

And gave the beggar half of it 
To cover him and ease his pain. 

But being now himself ill clad, 
The Saint's own case was no less sad. 

So piteously cold the night; 
Though glad at heart he was, right glad. 

Thus, singing, on his way he passed, 
While Satan, grim and overcast, 

Vowing the Saint should rue his deed. 
Released the cruel Northern blast. 

Away it sprang with shriek and roar. 
And buffeted the Saint full sore, 

Yet never wished he for his cloak; 
So Satan bade the deluge pour. 

Huge hail-stones joined in the attack. 
And dealt Saint Martin many a thwack, 

"My poor old head!" he smiling said, 
Yet never wished his cape were back. 



258 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

"He must, he shall," cried Satan, "know 
Regret for such an act," and lo. 

E'en as he spoke the world was dark 
With fog and frost and whirling snow. 

Saint Martin, struggling toward his goal. 
Mused thoughtfully, "Poor soul! poor soul! 

What use to him was half a cloak? 
I should have given him the whole." 

The cold grew terrible to bear. 
The birds fell frozen in the air: 

"Fall thou," said Satan, "on the ice. 
Fall thou asleep, and perish there." 

He fell, and slept, despite the storm. 

And dreamed he saw the Christ Child's form 

Wrapped in the half the beggar took, 
And seeing Him, was warm, so warm. 

The Arts et Metiers is a museum devoted to the 
progress of mechanics and the useful crafts : a kind of 
industrial exhibition, a modern utilitarian Cluny. It 
is a memorial of the world's ingenuity and the ingenuity 
of France in particular, and one cannot have a much 
better reminder that the frivolity of the Grands Boule- 
vards is not all. Apropos, however, of the frivolity of 
the Grands Boulevards, I may say that the case that 
was attracting most interest on the Sunday that I was 
here contained a collection of all the best mechanical 
toys of the past dozen years, with their dates affixed. 
The only article in the vast building which seemed to 
serve no useful purpose was a mirror cracked during the 
Commune by a bullet, with the bullet still in it. In the 
square opposite the Musee is the statue of Beranger, who 
for many years made the ballads of the French nation. 








THE PORTE ST. DENIS 

(south facade) 



THE REPUBLIC 259 

Returning to the Grands Boulevards once more, we 
pass first the Porte St. Martin theatre, where the great 
Coquelin played Cyrano, and where he was rehears- 
ing Chanticlere when he died, and then the Ambigu, 
home of sensational melodrama, and come very shortly 
to the Place de la Republique, with its great central 
monument. The Republic thus celebrated is not merely 
the Third and present Republic, but all the efforts in 
that direction which the French have made, as the 
twelve reliefs round the base will show, for they begin 
with the scene in the Jeu de Paume in 1789, and end 
with the National Fete on July 14th, 1880. Paris would 
still have statues of the Republique if this were to go, 
for there is one by Dalou, the sculptor of these bas- 
reliefs, in the Place de la Nation, and another by Soitoux 
at the Institut. Dalou (whose work we saw in such 
profusion at the Little Palace in the Champs-Elysees) 
made a very spirited and characteristic group, with the 
Republic standing high on a chariot being drawn by 
lions and urged forward by an ouvrier and an ouvriere. 

There is another and hardly less direct walk eastward 
to the Place de la Republique, which, taken slowly and 
amusedly, instructs one as fully in the manners of the 
busy small Parisian as the Boulevards in those of the 
flaneur. This route is by the Rue de Provence, the 
Rue Richer, the Rue des Petites-Ecuries and the Rue 
Chateau-d'Eau — practically a straight line, and in the 
old days a highway. You see the small Parisian at his 
busiest — at her busiest — this way. 



CHAPTER XVII 

MONTMARTRE 

Steep Streets — The Musee Moreau — The Sacre-Coeur — Franf oise- 
Marguerite — Paris and Her Beggars — A Ferocious Cripple — 
The Communard Insurrection — The Maison Dufayel — Heinrich 
Heine — The Cimetiere de Montmartre — The Boulevard de Clichy 
— Cabarets Good and Bad — An Aged Statesman is Entertained — 
Three Bals — Paris and Late Hours — The Night Cafes — The 
Tireless Dancers — A Coat-tail — The Dead Maitre d'Hotel. 

ONE may gain Montmartre by every street that 
runs off the Grands Boulevards on the left, be- 
tween the Opera and the Place de la Republique; but 
when the night falls and the tide begins to turn that 
way, it is the Rue Blanche and the Rue Pigalle that do 
most of the work. All are very steep. To the way- 
farer climbing the hill in no hurry, I recommend for 
its interest the Rue des Martyrs (Balzac once lived at 
No. 47), leading out of the Rue Laffitte; or, starting 
from the Boulevards at a more easterly point, one may 
gain it by the Rue du Faubourg Montmartre, which runs 
into the Rue des Martyrs at Notre Dame de Lorette 
and is full of activity and variety. 

By taking the Rue de la Rochefoucauld one may 
spend a few minutes in a little white building there 

260 



A VAIN ARTIST 261 

which was once the home and studio of the painter 
Gustave Moreau and is now left to the nation as a 
permanent memorial of his labours. In industry the 
man must have approached Rubens and Rembrandt, 
for this, though a large house, is literally filled with 
paintings and drawings and studies, which not only 
cover the walls but cover screens built into the walls, 
and screens within screens, and screens within those. 
The menuisier and Moreau together have contrived to 
make No. 14 Rue de la Rochefoucauld the most tiring 
house in Paris — at least to me, who do not admire 
the work of this painter, or at any rate do not want 
to see more of it than is in the Luxembourg, where 
may be seen several of his pictures, including the most 
famous of all, the Salome. Herr Baedeker considers 
that Moreau's works have a charm of their own, but 
I do not find it. I find a striving after the grandiose 
and startling, with only occasional lapses into sincerity 
and good colour. It is better than Wiertz, no doubt; 
but less entertaining, because less shocking. 

Montmartre's life may for our purpose be divided 
into three distinct periods : day, evening, and the small 
hours. By day one may roam its streets of living and 
of dead and study Paris from its summit ; in the evening 
its cabarets are in full swing; and then comes mid- 
night when its supper cafes open, not to close or cease 
their melodies until the shops are doing business again. 

Montmartre (so called because it was here that St. 
Denis and his associates were put to death) really is a 



262 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

mountain, as anyone who has climbed to the Sacre- 
Coeur can tell. The last two hundred yards are indeed 
nearly as steep as the Brecon Beacons ; but the climb is 
worth it if only for the view of Paris. (There is, how- 
ever, a funicular railway.) As for the cathedral, that 
seems to me to be better seen and appreciated from the 
distance : from the train as one enters Paris in the late 
afternoon, with the level sun lighting its pure walls; 
from the heights on the south side of the river; from 
the Boulevard des Italiens up the Rue Laffitte; and 
from the Buttes-Chaumont, as in Mr. Dexter's ex- 
quisite drawing. For the cathedral itself is not particu- 
larly attractive near at hand, and within it is cold and 
dull and still awaiting its glass. It was, however, one 
of the happiest thoughts that has come to Rome in 
our time to set this fascinating bizarre Oriental building 
here. It gave Paris a new note that it will now never 
lose. 

Before leaving, one ought perhaps to have a peep at 
Fran9oise-Marguerite, for one is not likely to see her 
equal again. rran9oise-Marguerite, otherwise known 
as La Savoyarde de Montmartre, is the great bell given 
to the cathedral by the province of Savoy. She weighs 
nineteen tons, is nine feet tall and her voice has remark- 
able timbre. 

Behind the new cathedral lies the old church of St. 
Pierre-de-Montmartre, on the side of which, it is said, 
once stood a temple of Mars. (Hence, for some lexico- 
graphers, Mont Mars and Montmartre ; but I prefer to 



THE MENDICANTS 263 

think of St. Denis wandering here without his head.) 
It was in the crypt of this church, I have somewhere 
read, that Ignatius Loyola, with Xavier and Laine, 
founded the order of Jesuits. 

I attended early mass at the Sacre-Cceur church on 
January 1st, 1908. It was snowing lightly and very 
cold, and as I came away, at about eight, and descended 
the hill towards Paris, I was struck by the spectacle 
of the lame and blind and miserable men and women 
who were appearing mysteriously from nowhere to de- 
scend the hill too, groping and hobbling down the 
slippery steepnesses. Such folk are an uncommon sight 
in Paris, where everyone seems to be, if not robust, at 
any rate active and capable, and where, although it 
eminently belongs to the poor as much as to the rich, 
extreme poverty is rarely seen. In London, where the 
poor convey no possessive impression, but, except in 
their own quarters, suggest that they are here on 
sufferance, one sees much distress. In Paris none, 
except on this day, the first of the year — and on one 
or two others, such as July 14th — when beggars are 
allowed to ask alms in the streets. For the rest of the 
year they must hide their misery and their want, al- 
though I still tremble a little as I remember the im- 
portunities of the Montmartre cripple of ferocious aspect 
and no legs at all, fixed into a packing-case on wheels, 
who, having demanded alms in vain, hauls himself night 
after night along the pavement after the hard-hearted, 
urging his torso's chariot by powerful strokes of his 



264 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

huge hands on the pavement, as though he rowed 
against Leander, with such menacing fury that I for one 
have Hterally taken to my heels. He is the only beggar 
I recollect meeting except on the permitted days, and 
then Paris swarms with them. 

Standing on the dome of the cathedral one has the 
city at one's feet, not as wonderfully as on the Eiffel 
Tower, but nearly so. From the Buttes-Chaumont we 
see Montmartre ; here we see the Buttes-Chaumont, 
which, before it was a park, shared with Montmartre 
the gypsum quarries from which plaster of Paris is 
made. Beyond the Buttes-Chaumont is Pere Lachaise, 
a hill strangely mottled by its grave-stones, while im- 
mediately below us is the Cimetiere du Nord, which we 
are about to visit for the sake of certain very interesting 
tombs. 

One realises quickly the strategical value of this moun- 
tain. Paris has indeed been bombarded from it twice 
— by Henri IV., and again, only thirty-eight years ago. 
It was indeed on Montmartre that the Communard in- 
surrection began, for it was the cannon on these heights 
that the rebel soldiers at once made for after the assassi- 
nation of their officers. They held them for a while, 
but were then overpowered and forced to take up their 
quarters in the Buttes-Chaumont and Pere Lachaise, 
which were shelled by the National Guard from Mont- 
martre until the brief but terrible mutiny was over. 

The great dome, close by us on the left, which might 
be another Pantheon, crowns the Maison Dufayel. 



THE BED KING 265 

Who is Dufayel ? you ask. Well, who is Wanamaker, 
who was Whiteley ? M. Dufayel is the head of the gigan- 
tic business in the boulevard Barbes, a northern contin- 
uation of the Boulevard de Magenta. His advertise- 
ments are on every hoarding. I think the Maison 
Dufayel is well worth a visit, especially as there is no 
need to buy anything : you may instead sip an aperitif, 
listen to the band or watch the cinematoscope. One 
also need have none of that fear of what would happen 
were there to be a sudden panic which always keeps me 
nervous if ever I am lured into the Magasins du Louvre 
or the Galerie Lafayette; for at Dufayel's there is 
space, whereas at those vast shopping centres there is 
a congestion that in a time of stress would lead to per- 
fectly awful results. The Maison Dufayel is not so 
varied a repository as Wanamaker's or Whiteley's, but 
in its way it is hardly less remarkable. Its principal 
line is furniture, and I never saw so many beds in my 
life. It was M. Dufayel who brought to perfection the 
deposit system of payment, and his agents continually 
range the otherwise pleasant land of France, collect- 
ing instalments. 

Since I had wandered Into this monstrous establish- 
ment, which may not be as large as Harrod's Stores but 
feels infinitely vaster, I determined to buy something, 
and decided at last upon a French picture book for an 
English child. Buying it was a simple operation, but 
I then made the mistake of asking that it might be 
sent to England direct. One should never do that in a 
bureaucratic country. The lady led me for what seemed 



266 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

several miles through various departments until we came 
late in the day to rows and rows of Frenchmen and 
Frenchwomen each in a little glass box. These boxes 
were numbered and ran to hundreds. We stopped at 
last before, say, 157, where my guide left me. The 
Frenchman in the box denied at once that the book could 
go by post. It was too large. It must go by rail. For 
myself, I did not then care how it went or if it went at 
all: I was tired out. Feeling that such an act as to 
abandon the parcel and run would be misconstrued and 
resented in a home of such perfect mechanical order, I 
waited until he had written for a quarter of an hour in 
a fine flowing hand with a pen sharper than a serpent's 
tooth, and then I paid the required number of francs and 
set out on the desperate errand of finding the street 
again. The book was a week on its journey. Go to 
Dufayel's, I say, most certainly, for it is quite amusing ; 
but go when you are young and strong. 

To me the most interesting thing on Montmartre is 
the grave of Heinrich Heine in the Cimetiere du Nord, 
a strange irregular city of dead Parisians all tidily laid 
away in their homes in its many streets, over which a 
busy rumbling thoroughfare has been carried on a viaduct. 
I had Heine's Salon with me when I was last in Paris, 
and I sought his grave again one afternoon with an in- 
creased sense of intimacy. A medallion portrait of the 
mournful face is cut in the marble, and on the grave 
itself are wistful echoes of the Buck der Lieder. A little 
tin receptacle is fixed to the stone, and I looked at the 



SACRED GROUND 267 

cards which in the pretty German way visitors had left 
upon the poet and his wife; for Frau Heine too Hes 
here. All were German and all rain-soaked (or was it 
tears ?). 

Matthew Arnold in his poem called Heine's grave 
black: the present one is white. How do the lines 
run.? 

'^ Henri Heine" 'tis here! 

That black tombstone, the name 

Carved there — no more ! and the smooth, 

Swarded alleys, the limes 

Touch'd with yellow by hot 

Summer, but under them still, 

In September's bright afternoon, 

Shadow, and verdure, and cool. 

Trim Montmartre ! the faint 

Murmur of Paris outside; 

Crisp everlasting-flowers. 

Yellow and black, on the graves. 

Half blind, palsied, in pain, 
Hither to come, from the streets' 
Uproar, surely not loath 
Wast thou, Heine ! — to lie 
Quiet, to ask for closed 
Shutters, and darken'd room. 
And cool drinks, and an eased 
Posture, and opium, no more; 
Hither to come, and to sleep 
Under the wings of Renown. 

Ah ! not little, when pain 
Is most quelling, and man 
Easily quell'd, and the fine 
Temper of genius so soon 
Thrills at each smart, is the praise. 
Not to have yielded to pain 1 



268 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

No small boast, for a weak 
Son of mankind, to the earth 
Pinn'd by the thunder, to rear 
His bolt-scathed front to the stars; 
And, undaunted, retort 
'Gainst thick-crashing, insane, 
Tyrannous tempests of bale. 
Arrowy lightnings of soul 



Ah ! as of old, from the pomp 

Of Italian Milan, the fair 

Flower of marble of white 

Southern palaces — steps 

Border'd by statues, and walks 

Terraced, and orange-bowers 

Heavy with fragrance — the blond 

German Kaiser full oft 

Long'd himself back to the fields, 

Rivers, and high-roof'd towns 

Of his native Germany; so, 

So, how often! from hot 

Paris drawing-rooms, and lamps 

Blazing, and brilliant crowds, 

Starr'd and jewell'd of men 

Famous, of women the queens 

Of dazzling converse — from fumes 

Of praise, hot, heady fumes, to the poor brain 

That mount, that madden — how oft 

Heine's spirit outworn 

Long'd itself out of the din, 

Back to the tranquil, the cool 

Far German home of his youth ! 

See ! in the May-afternoon, 
O'er the fresh, short turf of the Hartz, 
A youth, with the foot of youth, 
Heine! thou climbest again. 



HEINRICH HEINE 269 

But something prompts me: Not thus 
Take leave of Heine ! not thus 
Speak the last word at his grave! 
Not in pity, and not 
With half censure — with awe 
Hail, as it passes from earth 
Scattering lightnings, that soul! 

The Spirit of the world, 

Beholding the absurdity of men — 

Their vaunts, their feats — let a sardonic smile. 

For one short moment wander o'er his lips. 

That smile was Heine I — for its earthly hour 

The strange guest sparkled; now 'tis passed away. 

That was Heine! and we. 
Myriads who live, who have lived. 
What are we all, but a mood, 
A single mood, of the life 
Of the Spirit in whom we exist. 
Who alone is all things in one? 
Spirit, who fillest us all ! 
Spirit, who utterest in each 
New-coming son of mankind 
Such of thy thoughts as thou wilt! 
O thou, one of whose moods. 
Bitter and strange, was the life 
Of Heine — his strange, alas. 
His bitter life ! — may a life 
Other and milder be mine! 
May'st thou a mood more serene, 
Happier, have utter'd in mine! 
May'st thou the rapture of peace 
Deep have embreathed at its core; 
Made it a ray of thy thought, 
Made it a beat of thy joy ! 

Heine has many illustrious companions. If you would 
stand by the grave of Berlioz and Ambroise Thomas, of 
Offenbach, who set all Europe humming, of Delibes the 



270 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

composer of Genee's " Coppelia," of the Brothers de 
Goncourt, of Renan, who wrote the Life of Christ, or of 
Henri Murger, who discovered Bohemia, of De Neuville, 
painter of battles, of Halevy and Meilhac the play- 
wrights, or of Theophile Gautier the poet, you must seek 
the Cimetiere du Nord. 

Montmartre in the evening centres in the Boulevard de 
Clichy — a high-spirited thoroughfare. Many foreign- 
ers visit it only then, and the Boulevard spreads its wares 
accordingly, and very tawdry some of them are. Here, 
for example, is a garish fa9ade labelled " Ciel," in which 
a number of grubby blackguards dressed as saints and 
angels first bring refreshments at a franc a glass, and 
then offer the visitor a "preche humoristique " followed 
by variations of Pepper's ghost in what are called " scenes 
paradisiques," the whole performance being cold, tawdry 
and very stupid. Next door is " Enfer," where similar 
delights are offered, save that here the suggestion is not 
of heaven but hell. Instead therefore of grubby black- 
guards as saints we have grubby blackguards as devils. 
On the opposite side of the road is the Cabaret du Neant, 
where you are received with a mass for the dead sung by 
the staff, and sit at tables made of coffins. 

It is hardly necessary to say that very few Parisians 
enter these places. The singing cabarets, however, are 
different: they are genuine, and one needs to be not 
only a Parisian but a very well-informed Parisian to 
appreciate them, for the songs are palpitatingly topical 
and political. The Quatz'-Arts, the Lune-Rousse and 



THE OLD HIPPODROME 271 

the Chat-Noir (once so famous, but now lacking in the 
genius either of Salis, its founder, or of Caran d'Ache, 
Steinlen or Willette, who helped to make it renowned) 
are all in the Boulevard de Clichy. So also is Aristide 
Bruant's cabaret, where an organised shout of welcome 
awaits every visitor, and Aristide — in costume a cross 
between a poet and a cowboy — sings his realistic ballads 
of Parisian street life. Here also is the Moulin-Rouge, 
which in the old days of the elephant was in its spurious 
way amusing, but is now rebuilt and redecorated out of 
knowledge, and for all the words you hear might be on 
Broadway. 

Here, also at the extreme western end of the Boulevard, 
is the Hippodrome, now a hippodrome only in name and 
given up to the populous cinematoscope. I regret the 
loss of the real Paris Hippodrome. Paris still has her 
permanent circuses, but the Hippodrome is gone. It 
was there that, one night, in 1889, I chanced to sit very 
near the royal box, into which with much bowing and 
scraping of managers, a white-haired old gentleman with 
the features of a lion and an eagle harmoniously blended 
was ushered. Pie was only seventy-nine, this old gentle- 
man, and he was in the thick of such duties as fall to 
the Leader of the Opposition and promoter of Home 
Rule for Ireland; but he followed every step of the 
performance like a schoolboy, and now and then he sent 
for an official to have something explained to him, such 
as, on one occasion, the workings of the artificial snow- 
storm which overwhelmed Skobeleff's army. That ill- 



272 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

fated Russian general was the hero of the spectacle, 
a remarkable one in its way; but to me the restless 
animation and whole-hearted enjoyment of Mr. Glad- 
stone was the finer entertainment. 

Montmartre has also three dancing halls, two of which 
are genuine and one a show-place. The genuine halls 
are the Moulin-de-la-Galette, high on the hill on the 
steepest part of it above the Moulin-Rouge, and the 
Elysee in the Boulevard de Rochechouart, which are 
open only two or three times a week and which are 
thronged by the shop-assistants and young people of 
the neighbourhood. The spurious hall is the Bal Taba- 
rin, which is open every evening and is a spectacle. 
It is, however, by no means unamusing, and I have spent 
many pleasant idle hours there. Willette's famous 
fresco of the apotheosis of the Parisian leg decorates a 
wall-space over the bar with peculiar fitness. At all the 
bals the men who dance retain their hats and often 
their overcoats, and for the most part leave their partners 
with amazing abruptness at the last step. Some of the 
measures are conspicuous for a lack of restraint that 
would decimate an English ballroom ; but one must not 
take such displays " at the foot of the letter " ; they do 
not mean among these Latin romps and frolics what 
they would mean with us, whose emotions are less facile 
and sense of fun less physical. 

And so we come to midnight, when Montmartre 
enters its third, and, to a Londoner exasperated by the 
grandmotherly legislation of his own city, its most 



THE NIGHT CAFES 273 

entertaining phase. The idea that Paris is a late city 
is an illusion. Paris is not a late city : it is a city with 
a few late streets. Paris as a whole goes to bed as early 
as London, if not earlier, as a walk in the residential 
quarters will prove. Montmartre is late, and the Boule- 
vards des Capucines and des Italiens are late, although 
less so ; and that is about all. When it is remembered 
that Paris rises and opens its shops some hours earlier 
than London, and that the Parisians value their health, 
it will be recognised that Paris could not be a late city. 
One must remember also that the number of all-night 
cafes is very small, so small that by frequenting them 
with any diligence one may soon come to know by sight 
most of the late fringe of this city, both amateurs and 
professionals. One is indeed quickly struck by their 
numerical weakness. 

There is a fashion in night cafes as in hats ; change 
is made as suddenly and as inexplicably. One month 
everyone is crowding into, let us say, the Chat Vivant, 
and the next the Chat Vivant kindles its lamps and 
tweaks its mandolins in vain: all the world passes its 
doors on the way to the Nid de Nuit. What is the 
reason ? No one knows exactly ; but we must probably 
once again seek the woman. A new dancer (or shall I say 
attachee ?) has appeared, or an old dancer or attachee 
transferred her allegiance. And so for a while the Nid 
has not a free table after one o'clock, and on a special 
night — such as Mi-Car eme or Reveillon, or New Year's 
Eve — it is the head-waiter and the door-keeper of the Nid 



274 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

into whose hands are pressed the gold coins and bank 
notes to influence them to admit the bloods and their 
parties and find them a table which a year ago would 
have gone to the officials of the Chat Vivant. 

They remain, when all has been said against them, 
simple and well-mannered places, these half-dozen fa- 
mous cafes on which the sun always rises. To think so 
one must perhaps graduate on the Boulevards, but once 
they are accepted they can become an agreeable habit. 
Sleepiness is as unknown there as the writings of Thomas 
a Kempis. Not only the dancers de la maison but the 
visitors too are tireless. There may be ways of getting 
ennui into a Parisian girl, but certainly it is not by 
dancing. Nor does the band tire either, one excellent 
rule at all of them being that there should be no pause 
whatever between the tunes, from the hour of opening 
until day. 

There lies before me as I write an amusing memorial 
of the innocent high spirits that can prevail on such a 
special all-night sitting as Reveillon: one of the tails 
of a dress coat, lined with white satin on which a skilful 
hand has traced with a fountain pen (my own) two very 
intimate scenes of French life. These drawings were 
made between five and six in the morning in the intervals 
of the dance, the artist, lacking paper, having without 
a word taken a table knife and shorn off his coat-tails for 
the purpose. His coat, I may say, was already being 
worn inside out, with one of the leather buckles of his 
braces as a button-hole. A tall burly man, with a long 




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Q 


g 


Z 


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(a 


W 


fa 


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A FREAK 275 

red Boulevard beard, he had thrown out signs of friend- 
liness to me at once, and we became as brothers. He 
drew my portrait on the table cloth ; I affected to draw 
his. He showed me where I was wrong and drew it 
right. He then left me, in order to walk for a while on 
an imaginary tight-rope across the floor, and having 
safely made the journey and turned again, with infinite 
skill in his recoveries from falling and the most dexter- 
ous managing of a balancing-pole that did not exist, he 
leaped lightly to earth again, kissed his hand to the com- 
pany, and again sat by me and resumed his work; 
finally, after other diversions, completing the chef d'oeuvre 
that is now lying on my desk and lending abandon to 
what is otherwise a stronghold of British decorum. We 
parted at seven. I have never seen him since, but I find 
his name often in the French comic papers illustrating 
yet other phases of their favourite pleasantry for the 
entertainment of this simple and tireless people. 

Another incident I recall that is equally characteristic 
of Montmartre. " (^a ne fait rien," said a head-waiter 
when we had expressed regret on hearing of the death 
of the maitre d'hotel, for whom (an old acquaintance) 
we had been asking, "^a ne fait rien :" it is necessary 
to order supper just the same. True. True indeed 
everywhere, but particularly true on Montmartre. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE ELYSEE TO THE HOTEL DE VILLE 

The Most Interesting Streets — Pet Aversions — The Rue de la Paix 

— The Vendome Column — A Populous Church — The Whiff of 
Grapeshot — Alfred de Musset — The Moliere Quarter — A Green 
and White Oasis — Camille Desmoulins at the Cafe de Foy — 
Charles Lamb in Paris — The Cloitre de St. Honore — The Mas- 
sacre of St. Bartholomew — St. Germain of Auxerre — A Satisfied 
Corpse — Catherine de Medicis' Observatory — St. Eustache — A 
Wonderful Organ — The Halles — French Economy and English 
Want of It- — -The Goat-herd — The Assassination of Henri IV. — 

• The Tour St. Jacques — Pascal, Theologian and Inventor of 
Omnibuses — A Sinister Spot — -The Paris Town-hall^ A Riot of 
Frescoes — Etienne Marcel — The Hotel de Ville and Politesse — 
An Ancient Palace — Old Streets — Madame de Beauvais' Mansion 

— A Quiet Courtyard — The Church of St. Paul and St. Louis — 
Rabelais' Grave. 

THE Elysee, the official home of the French presi- 
dent — Paris's White House and Buckingham 
Palace — is situated in the Rue du Faubourg Saint- 
Honore, which is one of the most entertaining streets 
in the whole city in which to loiter ; that is, if you like, 
as I do, the windows of curiosity dealers and jewellers 
and print shops. Not that bargains are to be obtained 
here: far from it: it is not like the Rue Saints-Peres 
or the Rue Mazarine across the river; but merely as a 
series of windows it is fascinating. I like it as much as I 

276 



THE DULL STREETS 277 

dislike the Rue Lafayette, which has always been my 
aversion, not only because it is interminable and com- 
mercial and noisy, but because it leads back to England 
and work ; yet since, however, when one arrives in Paris 
it leads from England and work, I must be a little 
lenient, and there is also a cafe in it where the diamond- 
merchants compare gems quite openly. 

Remembering these extenuating circumstances I un- 
hesitatingly award the palm for undesirability in a Paris 
street to the Rue du Quatre-Septembre and the Rue 
Reaumur, which are sheer Shaftesbury Avenue, and, as 
in Shaftesbury Avenue, cause one to regret the older 
streets and houses whose place they have usurped. The 
Rue de Rivoli I dislike too : that strange mixture of very 
good hotels (the Meurice, for instance, is here) and rub- 
bishy shops full of tawdry jewellery to catch the excur- 
sionist. How it happened that such a site should have 
been allowed to fall into such hands is a mystery. An 
additional objection to the Rue de Rivoli is that the one 
English acquaintance whom one least wishes to meet is 
always there. 

The Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore becomes the 
Rue Saint-Honore at the Rue Royale. The Rue Saint- 
Honore is also a good street for shop windows, but not 
the equal of its more aristocratic half; just as that is 
surpassed here by the Rue de la Paix, to which we now 
come on the left, and which contains more things that I 
can do without, made to perfection, than any street I 
ever saw. At its foot is the Place Vendome, with the 



278 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

beautiful column in the midst on which Napoleon's 
campaign of 1805 is illustrated in a bronze spiral that 
constitutes at once, I suppose, the most durable and 
the longest picture in the world. The bronze came very 
properly from the melted Russian and Austrian cannons. 
Napoleon stands at the top, imperially splendid; but 
as we saw in the chapter on the " He de la Cite," it was 
not always so : for his first statue was removed by Louis 
XVIII. to be used for the new Henri IV. In its stead 
a fleur-de-lys surmounted the column. Then came 
Louis-Philippe, who erected a new statue of the Em- 
peror, not, however, imperially clad ; and then Napoleon 
III., who substituted the present figure. But in 1870 
the Communards succeeded in bringing the column 
down, and it has only been vertical again since 1875. 
Thus it is to be a Paris monument ! 

Returning to the Rue Saint-Honore, in which, by the 
way, are several old and interesting houses, such as 
No. 271, the Cabaret du Saint-Esprit, a great resort in 
the Reign of Terror of spectators wishing to see the 
tumbrils pass, and No. 398, where Robespierre lodged, 
we come to St. Roch's church, on the left, interesting 
both in itself and in history. It has been called the 
noisiest church in Paris, and certainly it is difficult to 
find a time when feet are silent there. The attraction is 
St. Roch's wealth of shrines, of a rather theatrical char- 
acter, such as the wise poor love : an entombment, a 
calvary and a nativity, all very effective if not beautiful. 
Beauty does not matter, for on Good Friday the en- 



THE MOMENT AND THE MAN 279 

tombment holds thousands silent before it. The 
church, which is in the baroque style that it is so easy to 
dislike, is too florid throughout. Among the many 
monuments are memorials of Corneille and Diderot, 
both of whom are buried here. The music of St. Roch 
is, I am told, second only to that of the Madeleine. 

So much for St. Roch within. Historically it 
chances to be of immense importance, for it was here, 
and in the streets around and about the church, that 
the whiff of grapeshot blew which dispersed the French 
Revolution into the air. That was on October 5th, 
1793, and it was not only the death of the Revolution but 
it was the birth of the conquering Buonaparte. Carlyle 
is superb : " Some call for Barras to be made Command- 
ant ; he conquered in Thermidor. Some, what is more 
to the purpose, bethink them of the Citizen Buonaparte, 
unemployed Artillery-Officer, who took Toulon. A 
man of head, a man of action : Barras is named Com- 
mandant's-Cloak ; this young Artillery-Officer is named 
Commandant. He was in the Gallery at the moment, 
and heard it ; he withdrew, some half -hour, to consider 
with himself : after a half -hour of grim compressed con- 
sidering, to be or not to be, he answers Yea. 

"And now, a man of head being at the centre of it, 
the whole matter gets vital. Swift, to Camp of Sab- 
Ions ; to secure the Artillery, there are not twenty men 
guarding it ! A swift Adjutant, Murat is the name of 
him, gallops; gets thither some minutes within time, 
for Lepelletier was also on march that way : the Cannon 



280 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

are ours. And now beset this post, and beset that; 
rapid and firm : at Wieket of the Louvre, in Cul-de-sac 
Dauphin, in Rue Saint-Honore, from Pont-Neuf all 
along the north Quays, southward to Pont ci-devant 
Royal, — rank round the Sanctuary of the Tuileries, a 
ring of steel discipline ; let every gunner have his match 
burning, and all men stand to their arms ! 

" Lepelletier has seized the Church of Saint-Roch ; has 
seized the Pont-Neuf, our piquet there retreating with- 
out fire. Stray shots fall from Lepelletier ; rattle down 
on the very Tuileries Staircase. On the other hand, 
women advance, dishevelled, shrieking, Peace ; Lepel- 
letier behind them waving his hat in sign that we shall 
fraternise. Steady ! The Artillery-Officer is steady as 
bronze; can, if need were, be quick as lightning. He 
sends eight-hundred muskets with ball-cartridges to the 
Convention itself; honourable Members shall act with 
these in case of extremity: whereat they look grave 
enough. Four of the afternoon is struck. Lepelletier, 
making nothing by messengers, by fraternity or hat- 
waving, bursts out, along the Southern Quai Voltaire, 
along streets and passages, treble-quick, in huge verit- 
able onslaught ! Whereupon, thou bronze Artillery- 
Officer — ^ ' Fire !' say the bronze lips. And roar and 
thunder, roar and again roar, continual, volcano-like, 
goes his great gun, in the Cul-de-sac Dauphin against 
the Church of Saint-Roch; go his great guns on the 
Pont-Royal ; go all his great guns ; — blow to air some 
two-hundred men, mainly about the Church of Saint- 



THE WHIFF OF GRAPESHOT 281 

Roch ! Lepelletier cannot stand such horse-play ; no 
Sectioner can stand it; the Forty-thousand yield on all 
sides, scour towards covert. 'Some hundred or so of 
them gathered about the Theatre de la Republique; 
but,' says he, ' a few shells dislodged them. It was all 
finished at six.' 

"The Ship is over the bar, then; free she bounds 
shoreward, — amid shouting and vivats ! Citoyen Buona- 
parte is ' named General of the Interior, by acclamation ' ; 
quelled Sections have to disarm in such humour as they 
may ; sacred right of Insurrection is gone forever ! 
The Sieyes Constitution can disembark itself, and begin 
marching. The miraculous Convention Ship has got 
to land ; — and is there, shall we figuratively say, changed, 
as Epic Ships are wont, into a kind of Sea Nymph, 
never to sail more ; to roam the waste Azure, a Miracle 
in History ! 

'"It is false,' says Napoleon, 'that we fired first with 
blank charge; it had been a waste of life to do that.' 
Most false: the firing was with sharp and sharpest 
shot: to all men it was plain that here was no sport; 
the rabbets and plinths of Saint-Roch Church show 
splintered by it to this hour. — Singular : in old Broglie's 
time, six years ago, this Whiff of Grapeshot was pro- 
mised ; but it could not be given then ; could not have 
profited then. Now, however, the time is come for it, 
and the man; and behold, you have it; and the thing 
we specifically call French Revolution is blown into 
space by it, and become a thing that was ! — " 



282 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

Crossing the Place du Theatre-Fran ^ais we come to 
that historic home of the best French drama, where 
Moliere is still played frequently and one has some re- 
spite from the theme of facile promiscuity which domin- 
ates most of the other theatres of Paris. A new statue 
cf Alfred de Musset has lately been set up under the 
Comedie Fran9aise. I copy from a writer very unlike 
him a passage of criticism to remember as one stands 
by this monument : " Give a look, if you can, at a 
Memoir of Alfred de Musset written by his Brother. 
Making allowance for French morals, and Absinthe 
(which latter is not mentioned in the Book), Alfred 
appears to me a fine Fellow, very un-French in some 
respects. He did not at all relish the new Romantic 

School, beginning with V. Hugo, and now alive in 

and Co. — (what I call the Gargoyle School of Art, 
whether in Poetry, Painting, or Music) — he detested 
the modern ' f euilleton ' Novel, and read Clarissa ! . . . 
Many years before A. de M. died he had a bad, long 
illness, and was attended by a Sister of Charity. When 
she left she gave him a Pen with 'Prenez a vos pro- 
messes' worked about in coloured silks : as also a little 
worsted 'Amphore' she had knitted at his bedside. 
When he came to die, some seventeen years after, he 
had these two little things put with him in his Coffin." 
That, by Edward FitzGerald, no natural friend to the 
de Mussets of the world, is very pretty. 

The Rue de Richelieu runs up beside the Comedie 
Fran9aise. We have already been in this street to see 



THE MOLIERE DISTRICT 283 

the Bibliotheque Nationale, entering it from the Boule- 
vard, but let us now walk up it, first to see the Moliere 
monument, so appropriate just here, and also to glance 
at No. 50, a house still unchanged, where once lived an 
insignificant couple named Poisson, whose daughter Jean 
Antoinette Poisson lived to become famous as Madame 
La Pompadour. In souvenirs of Moliere Paris is still 
rich. We are coming soon to No. 92 Rue Saint-Honore, 
where he was born; we are coming to he church of St, 
Eustache, where he was christened on January 15th, 
1622, and where his second son was christened too. We 
are coming also to the church of St. Germain I'Auxerrois, 
where he was married and where his first son was bap- 
tised. In St. Roch he once stood as a godfather; and 
close to us now, at the corner of the Rue Saint-Honore 
and the Rue Valois, was one of his theatres. And he 
died close to his monument, at No. 40 Rue de Richelieu. 
This then is the Moliere quarter. 

We now enter the Palais Royal, that strange white 
and green oasis into which it is so simple never to stray. 
When I first knew Paris the Palais Royal was filled with 
cheap restaurants and shops to allure the excursionist 
and the connoisseur of those books which an inspired 
catalogue once described as very curious and disgusting. 
It is now practically deserted; the restaurants have 
gone and few shops remain; but in the summer the 
band plays to happy crowds and children frolic here all 
day. I have, however, never succeeded in shaking off 
a feeling of depression. 



284 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

The original palace was built by Richelieu and was 
then the Palais Cardinal. After his death it became 
the Palais Royal and was enlarged, and was the scene 
of notorious orgies. Camille Desmoulins made it more 
serious, for it was here that he enflamed the people by 
his words on July 12th, 1789, and started them on their 
destroying career. That was in the Cafe de Foy. Car- 
lyle thus describes the scene: "But see Camille Des- 
moulins, from the Cafe de Foy, rushing out, sibylline in 
face ; his hair streaming, in each hand a pistol ! He 
springs to a table : the Police satellites are eyeing him ; 
alive they shall not take him, not they alive him alive. 
This time he speaks without stammering : — Friends ! 
shall we die like hunted hares ? Like sheep hounded 
into their pinfold ; bleating for mercy, where is no mercy, 
but only a whetted knife ^ The hour is come ; the su- 
preme hour of Frenchman and Man ; when Oppressors 
are to try conclusions with Oppressed ; and the word is, 
swift Death, or Deliverance forever. Let such hour be 
well-come ! Us, meseems, one cry only befits : To 
Arms ! Let universal Paris, universal France, as with 
the throat of the whirlwind, sound only : To arms — To 
arms ! yell responsive the innumerable voices ; like one 
great voice, as of a Demon yelling from the air : for all 
faces wax jfire-eyed, all hearts burn up into madness. 
In such, or fitter words, does Camille evoke the Elemen- 
tal Powers, in this great moment. — Friends, continues 
Camille, some rallying-sign ! Cockades ; green ones ; 
— the colour of Hope ! — As with the flight of locusts, 



ELIA IN PARIS 285 

these green tree-leaves ; green ribands from the neigh- 
bouring shops ; all green things are snatched, and made 
cockades of. Camille descends from his table, 'stifled 
with embraces, wetted with tears'; has a bit of green 
riband handed him; sticks it in his hat. And now to 
Curtius' Image-shop there; to the Boulevards; to the 
four winds ; and rest not till France be on fire !" 

Desmoulins in bronze now stands in the garden, near 
this spot. It is an interesting statue by Boverie, who 
showed great courage in his use of a common chair, 
dignified here into a worthy adjunct of liberation. 

Under Napoleon the Tribunate sat in the Palais Royal, 
and after Napoleon the Orleans family made it their 
home. The Communards, always thorough, burned a 
good deal of it in 1871, and it is now a desert and the 
seat of the Conseil d'Etat. Let us leave it by the gate- 
way leading to the Rue de Valois and be happier again. 

The Rue de Valois is an interesting and picturesque 
street, but its greatest attraction to me is its association 
with Charles Lamb. His hotel — the Europe, just op- 
posite the gateway — has recently been rebuilt and is 
now called the Grand Hotel du Palais Royal et de I'Eu- 
rope, and the polished staircase on which his infinitesi- 
mal legs slipped about so comically on his late and not 
too steady returnings (and how could he be steady when 
Providence ordained that the waiter of whom in his best 
stammering French he ordered an egg on his first visit to 
a restaurant, should have so misunderstood the order as 
to bring in its place a glass of eau de vie, an error, we are 



286 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

told, which gave Lamb much pleasure ?) the polished 
staircase has now gone; but the hotel stands exactly 
where it did, and everything else is the same — the 
Boeuf a la Mode is still close by and still one of the best 
restaurants in Paris, and the Place de Valois is un- 
touched, with its most attractive archway leading to the 
Rue des Bons-Enfants and giving on to the vista of the 
Rue Montesquieu, with its hundred signs hanging out 
exactly as in 1823. 

We now return to the Rue Saint-Honore. The three 
old houses, 180, 182, and 184, opposite the Magazins 
du Louvre, belonged before the Revolution to the 
Canons of Saint-Honore. The courtyard here — the 
Cloitre du Saint-Honore — is one of the most character- 
istic examples of dirty Paris that remain, but very pic- 
turesque too. To peep in here is almost certainly to be 
rewarded by some Hogarthian touch, and to walk up the 
Rue des Bons-Enfants yields similar experiences and 
some very pleasant glimpses of old Paris. 

Still going east we turn down past the Oratoire on 
the right, with Coligny's monument on its south side, 
into the Rue de Rivoli, and across the Rue du Louvre 
obliquely to the old church we see there, opposite the 
east end of the Louvre and Napoleon's iron gates. 
This church is that of St. Germain I'Auxerrois, not to 
be confounded with the St. Germain of St. Germain des 
Pres across the river. St. Germain I'Auxerrois is histori- 
cally one of the most interesting of the Paris churches, 
for it was St. Germain's bell that gave the signal for 




b.yU»WMWit 



L'AMATEUR D'ESTAMPES 

DAUMIER 

{Palais des Beaux Arts) 



ST. GERMAIN 287 

the massacre of St. Bartholomew in 1572, Charles IX. 
is said to have fired at the Huguenots (doubtless with 
Catherine de Medicis at his shoulder, anxious for the 
success of his aim) from one of the windows in the 
Louvre overlooking this space. 

St. Germain of Auxerre began as a layman — the ruler 
of Burgundy. Divine revelation, however, indicated 
that the Church was his true calling, and he therefore 
succeeded Saint Amad our as Bishop, " gave," in Caxton's 
words, "all his riches to poor people, and changed his 
wife into his sister." He took to the new life very 
thoroughly. He fasted every day till evening and then 
ate coarse bread and drank water and used no pottage 
and no salt. "In winter ne summer he had but one 
clothing, and that was the hair next his body, a coat, 
and a gown, and if it happed so that he gave not his 
vesture to some poor body, he would wear it till it were 
broken and torn. His bed was environed with ashes, 
hair, and sackcloth, and his head lay no higher than his 
shoulders, but all day wept, and bare about his neck 
divers relics of saints. He ware none other clothing, 
and he went oft barefoot and seldom ware any girdle. 
The life that he led was above man's power. His life 
was so straight and hard that it was marvel and pity 
to see his flesh, and was like a thing not credible, and 
he did so many miracles that, if his merits had not gone 
before, they should have been trowed phantasms." 

St. Germain's miracles were more interesting than 
those of, say, his convert St. Genevieve. He conjured 



288 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

devils; he forbade fire to burn him; having fed his 
companions on the only calf of a friendly cow-herd, he 
put the bones and the skins together and life returned 
to it ; he also raised one of his own disciples from the 
dead and conversed with him through the walls of his 
tomb, but on the disciple saying that in his late con- 
dition " he was well and all things were to him soft and 
sweet," he permitted him to remain dead. He also 
found his miraculous gifts very useful in the war; but 
his principal interest to us is that he is supposed to 
have visited England and organised the Establishment 
here. St. Germain's church has a little old glass that 
is charming and much bad new. The south transept 
window, although sheer kaleidoscope, is gay and at- 
tractive. 

At the back of the church runs the narrow and medie- 
val Rue de I'Arbre-Sec, extending to the Rue Saint- 
Honore. At No. 4 is, or was, the Hotel des Mousq^iie- 
taires, where, when it was the Belle Etoile, d'Artagnan 
drank and swaggered. Let us take this street and come 
to St. Eustache by way of another and less terrible 
souvenir of Catherine de Medicis. The Rue de I'Arbre- 
Sec leads to the Rue Sauval and to the circular Rue de 
Viarmes surrounding the Bourse de Commerce. Here 
we see a remarkable Doric column, all that remains of 
the palace which Catherine built in order to avoid the 
fate predicted for her by a soothsayer — that she would 
perish in the ruins of a house near St. Germain's. The 
Tuileries, which she was then building, being far too near 



THE CHURCH OF ST. EUSTACHE 289 

St. Germain's to be comfortable after such a remark, she 
erected the Hotel de la Reine, the tower being designed 
for astrological study in the company of her Italian 
familiar, Ruggieri. All else has gone: the tower and 
the stars remain. 

A few steps down the Rue Oblin and we are at St. 
Eustache, which has to my eyes the most fascinating 
roof of any church in Paris and a very attractive 
nave. The interior, however, is marred by the presence 
of what might be called a church within a church, de- 
stroying all vistas, and it is only with great difficulty 
that one can see the exquisite rose window over the 
organ. It is a church much used by the poor — who 
even call it Notre Dame des Halles — but its music on 
festival days brings the rich too. Like most other 
Paris churches of any importance, St. Eustache had its 
secular period. The Feast of Reason was held here in 
1793 ; in 1795 it was the Temple of Agriculture. In 
1791 Mirabeau, the first of the illustrious, as we saw, to 
be buried in the Pantheon, was carried here in his coffin 
for a funeral service, at which guns were fired that 
brought down some of the plaster. Voiture the poet 
was buried here. The church has always been famous for 
the splendour of its festivals and for its music, its present 
organ, once much injured by Communard bombs, being 
one of the finest in the world. No reader of this book 
who cares for solemn music should fail to ascertain the 
St. Eustache festivals. On St. Cecilia's day (March 22nd) 
entrance is very difficult, but an eflFort should be made. 



290 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

Eustache, or Eustace, the Saint, had no direct associa- 
tion with Paris, as had our friends St. Germain and St. 
Genevieve and St. Denis and St. Martin and St. Merry ; 
but he had an indirect one, having been a Roman 
soldier under the Emperor Trajan, whose column was 
the model for the Vendome column. In the Sacristy, 
however, are preserved some of the bones not only of 
himself but of his wife and family, brought hither from 
St. Denis. One of his teeth is here too, and one special 
bone, the gift of Pope Alexander VII. to an influential 
Catholic. 

Why our London markets should be so dull and un- 
attractive and the Halles so entertaining is a problem 
which would perhaps require an ethnological essay of 
many pages to elucidate. But so it is. Smithfield, 
Billingsgate, Leadenhall, Covent Garden — one has 
little temptation or encouragement to loiter in any of 
them ; but the Halles spread welcoming arms. I have 
spent hours there, and would spend more. In the very 
early morning it is not too agreeable a neighbourhood for 
the idle spectator, nor is he desired, although if he is 
prepared to endure a little rough usage with tongue 
and elbow he will be vastly amused by what he sees; 
but later, when all the world is up, the Halles entreat 
his company. Their phases are three: the first is the 
arrival of the market carts with their merchandise, very 
much as in our own Covent Garden, but multiplied 
many times and infinitely more vocal and shattering to 
the nerves. (I once occupied a bedroom within range 



FRENCH ECONOMY 291 

of this pandemonium.) The second phase, a few hours 
later, sees the descent upon the market of the large 
caterers — buyers for the restaurants, great and small, 
the hotels and pensions. That is between half-past five 
and half-past seven. And then come the small buyers, 
the neat servants, the stout housewives, all with their 
baskets or string bags. This is our time ; we may now 
loiter at our ease secure from the swift and scorching 
sarcasms of the crowded dawn. 

The Halles furnish another proof of the quiet 
efficiency of Frenchwomen. At every fruit and vege- 
table stall — and to me they are the most interesting of 
all — sits one or more of these watchful creatures, cheer- 
ful, capable and always busy either with the affairs of 
the stall or with knitting or sewing. The Halles afford 
also very practical proof of the place that economy is 
permitted to hold in the French cuisine ; as much being 
done for the small purse as for the large one. 

In England we are ashamed of economy ; by avoiding 
it we hope to give the impression that we are not mean. 
The wise French either care less for their neighbour's 
opinions or have agreed together to dispense with such 
insincerities; and the result is that if a pennyworth of 
carrots is all that your soup requires you need not buy 
two pennyworth, and so forth. Little portions of vege- 
tables for one, two or more persons, all ready for the pot, 
can be bought, involving no waste whatever, and with 
no faltering or excuse on the part of the purchaser to 
explain so small an order. In France a customer is a 



292 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

customer. There are no distinctions; although I do 
not deny that in the West End of Paris, where the 
Americans and EngHsh spend their money, subtle shades 
of courtesy (or want of it) have crept in. I have been 
treated like a prince in a small comestible shop where I 
wanted only a pennyworth of butter, a pennyworth of 
cheese and a pennyworth of milk. It is pennies that 
make the French rich ; no one can be in any doubt of 
that who has taken notice of the thousands of small 
shops not only in Paris but in the provinces. 

Anyone making an early morning visit to the Halles 
should complete it by seeing my goat-herd, who leads 
his flocks thereabouts and eastward. He is the prettiest 
sight I ever saw in Paris. There are several goat-herds 
— even Passy knows them — but my goat-herd is here. 
By eight o'clock he has done; his flock is dry. He 
wears a blue cloth tam-o'-shanter (if there can be such 
a thing : it is really the cap of the romantic mountaineer 
of comic opera) and he saunters carelessly along, piping 
melancholy notes on a shepherd's pipe — not unlike the 
lovely wailing that desolates the soul in the last act of 
Tristan und Isolde. When a customer arrives he calls 
one of his goats, sits down on the nearest doorstep — it 
may be a seventeenth-century palace — and milks a cup- 
ful; and then he is off again, with his scrannel to his 
lips, the very type of the urban Strephon. 

We may leave les Halles (pronounced lay al, and not, 
as one would think, lays all : one of the pitfalls for the 
English in Paris) by the Rue Berger, and enter the 



PASCAL 293 

Square des Innocents to look at its decorative fountain. 
The next street below the Rue des Innocents is the 
Rue de la Ferronnerie, where, on May 14th, 1610, 
Henri IV. was assassinated by Ravaillac before the door 
of No, 3. And so by the Rue St. Denis, which one is 
always glad to enter again, and the Rue de Rivoli, we 
come to Saint-Jacques, that grey aged isolated tower 
which we have seen so often from the heights and in 
the distance. It is a beautiful Gothic building, at the 
summit of which is the figure of St. James, with his 
emblems, the originals of which are at the Cluny. The 
tower belonged to the church of St. Jacques-la-Bou- 
cherie, but that being in the way when Napoleon 
planned the Rue de Rivoli, it had to go. 

The tower has not lately been open to the climbers, 
and I have never seen Paris from St. James's side, but I 
hope to. Blaise Pascal experimented here in the den- 
sity of air; hence the presence of his statue below. It 
was also to Pascal, of whom we now think only as an 
ironist and wistful theologian, that Paris owes her 
omnibuses, for it was he that devised the first, which 
began to run on March 18th, 1662, from the Luxem- 
bourg to the Bastille. Pascal owed his conversion to 
his escape from a carriage accident on the Pont Neuf . 
His grave we saw at St. Etienne-du-Mont. 

In crossing the Place de I'Hotel de Ville one must not 
forget that this was once the terrible Place de Greve, 
the site of public executions for five centuries. Here 
we meet Catherine de Medicis again, for it was by her 



294 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

order that after the Massacre of St. Bartholomew the 
Huguenots Briquemont and Cavagnes were hanged here, 
and here also was executed Captain Montgomery, whom 
we are to meet in the next chapter. The foster-sister 
of Marie de Medicis was burned alive in the Place de 
Greve as a sorcerer; and Ravaillac, after assassinating 
Henri IV., here met his end. Among later victims was 
the famous Cartouche, of whom Thackeray wrote so 
entertainingly. 

The Hotel de Ville is not a building that I for one 
should choose to revisit, nor do I indeed advise others 
to bother about it at all ; but externally at any rate it is 
fine, with its golden sentinels on high. Its chief merit 
is bulk; but there is a certain interest in observing a 
Republican palace of our own time, if only to see how 
near it can come to the real thing. A saturnine guide 
displays a series of spacious apartments, the principal 
attraction of which is their mural painting. All the best 
French Royal Academicians (so to speak) of twenty 
years ago had a finger in this pie, and their fantasies 
sprawl over ceilings and walls. With the exception of 
one room the history of Paris is practically ignored, 
allegory being the master vogue. Poetry, Song, Inspira- 
tion, Fame, Ambition, Despair — all these undraped 
ladies may be seen, and many others. Also Electricity 
and Steam, Science and Art, distinguishable from their 
sisters only by the happy chance that although they 
forgot their clothes they did not forget their symbols. 

One beautiful thing only did I see, and that was a 




in p. 



H -S 



civic POLITESSE 295 

large design, perhaps the largest there, of Winter, by 
Puvis de Chavannes. But to say that I saw it is an 
exaggeration: rather, I was conscious of it. For the 
architect of the salon in which Puvis was permitted to 
work forgot to light it. 

In the historical room there are crowded scenes by 
Laurens of the past of Paris — the hero of which is 
Etienhe Marcel, whose equestrian statue may be seen 
from the windows, under the river fa9ade of the building. 
Etienne Marcel, Merchant Provost, controlled Paris 
after the disastrous battle of Poictiers, where the King 
and the Dauphin were both taken prisoners. Power, 
however, made him headstrong, and he was killed by an 
assassin. 

It is from the Hotel de Ville that the city of Paris is 
administered, with the assistance of the Prefecture de 
Police on the island opposite. The Hotel de Ville con- 
tains, so to speak, the Paris County Council, and I have 
been told that no building is so absurdly over-staifed. 
That may or may not be true. The high officials do 
not at any rate allow business to exclude the finer graces 
of life, for in the great hall in which I waited for the 
cicerone were long tables on which were some twenty or 
thirty baskets containing visiting cards, and open books 
containing signatures, and before each basket was a card 
bearing the name of an important functionary of the 
Hotel de Ville — such as the Prefet de la Seine, and the 
Sous-Prefet, and their principal secretaries, and so forth. 
Every minute or so someone came in, found the basket 



296 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

to which he wished to contribute, and dropped a card 
in it. I wondered to what extent the social machinery 
of Paris bureaucracy would be disorganised if I were to 
change a few baskets, but I did not embark upon an 
experiment the results of which I should have had no 
means of contemplating and enjoying. 

After leaving the Hotel de Ville and its modern 
splendours, we may walk eastward along the Rue de 
rHotel de Ville, one of the narrowest and dirtiest relics 
of old Paris, and so come to the Hotel de Sens. But 
first notice, at the corner of the Rue des Nonnains- 
d'Hyeres, at the point at which Mr. Dexter made his 
drawing, the very ancient stone sign of the knife-grinder. 
The Hotel de Sens, in the Place de I'Ave Maria, at the 
end of the Rue de I'Hotel de Ville, is almost if not quite 
the most attractive of the old palaces. Although it has 
been allowed to fall into neglect, it is still a wonderfully 
preserved specimen of fifteenth-century building. The 
turrets are absolutely beautiful. The Archbishop of 
Sens built it, and for nearly three centuries it remained 
the home of power and wealth, among its tenants being 
Marguerite of Valois. Then came the Revolution and 
its decline into a coach office, from which it is said the 
Lyons mail, made familiar to us by the Irvings, started. 
During a later revolution, 1830, a cannon ball found a 
billet in the wall, and it may still be seen there, I am 
told, although these eyes missed it. The Hotel is now 
a glass factory. The city of Paris ought to acquire it 
before it sinks any lower. 



OLD STREETS 297 

It is at the foot of the Rue de I'Ave Maria, hard by, 
that Moliere's theatre, which we saw from the Quai des 
Celestins in an earher chapter, is found. Here Moliere 
was arrested at the instance of the unpaid tallow 
chandler. Our way now is by the Rue Figuier, of which 
the Hotel de Sens is No. 1, to the Rue Fran9ois-Miron, 
all among the most fascinating old architecture and 
association. At No. 8 Rue Figuier, for instance, Ra- 
belais is said to have lived, and what could be better 
than that ^ At No. 17, we have what the Vicomte de 
Villebresme calls a " jolie niche du XV^ siecle." This 
street leads into the Rue de Jouy, also exceedingly old, 
with notable buildings, such as No. 7, the work of 
Mansard pere, and No. 9, and on the left of the Impasse 
Guepine, which existed in the reign of Saint Louis. 

In the Rue Fran9ois-Miron, if you do not mind ex- 
hibiting a little inquisitiveness, enter the doorway of 
No. 68, and look at the courtyard and the staircase. 
Here you get an excellent idea of past glories, while the 
outer doors or gates give an excellent idea of past danger 
too. For life in Paris in the days in which this street 
was built must have been very cheap after dark. It is 
not dear even now in certain parts. This was an his- 
toric mansion. It was built for Madame de Beaumaris, 
femme de chambre of Anne of Austria, and on its 
balcony, now removed, on August 20th, 1660, Anne 
stood with Mazarin and others when Louis XIV. entered 
Paris. No. 82 still retains a balcony of great charm. 

We now enter the very busy Rue St. Antoine at its 



298 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

junction with the Rue de Rivoli. Almost immediately 
on our right is a gateway leading into a very charming 
courtyard, which is not open to the public but into 
which one may gently trespass; it is the school of the 
Freres Chretiens, founded by Frere Joseph, the good 
priest with the sweet and sad old face whose bust is on 
the wall. A few steps farther bring us to the church 
of St. Paul and St. Louis, a florid and imposing fane, 
to which Victor Hugo (to whose house we are now 
making our way) carried his first child to be christened, 
and presented to the church two holy water stoops in 
commemoration. Here also Richelieu celebrated his 
first mass. One of Delacroix's best early works (we saw 
the picture called "Hommage a Delacroix," you will 
remember, in the Moreau collection at the Louvre) is 
in the left transept, "Christ in the garden of Gethse- 
mane." On no account miss the Passage Charlemagne 
(close to the St. Paul Station on the Metro), for it is 
a curious, busy and very French by-way, and it possesses 
the remains of a palace of the fourteenth century. In 
the Passage de St. Pierre is the site of the old cemetery 
of St. Paul's in which Rabelais was buried. 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE PLACE DES VOSGES AND HUGo's HOUSE 

A Beautiful Square — The Palais des Tournelles — Revolutionary 
Changes — Madame de Sevigne and Rachel — Hugo's Crowded 
Life — A Riot of Relics — Victorious Versatility — Dumas' Pen — 
The Age of Giants — Dickens — " Les Trois Dumas'." 

WERE we to walk a little farther along the busy 
Rue St. Antoine towards the Place de la 
Bastille, we should come, on the left, a few yards past 
the church of St. Louis, to the Rue de Birague, at the 
head of which is the beautiful red gateway of which Mr. 
Dexter has made such a charming picture. This is the 
southern gateway of the Place des Vosges, a spacious 
green square enclosed by massive red and white houses 
of brick and stone which once were the abode, when the 
Place des Vosges was the Place Royale, of the aristocracy 
of France. 

Before that time the courtyard of the old Palais des 
Tournelles was here, where Henri II. was killed in a 
tournament in 1565, through an accident for which 
Captain Montgomery of the Scotch Guard, whose fault 
Catherine de Medicis deemed it to be, was executed, as 
we have just seen, in the Place de I'Hotel de Ville. 

299 



300 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

Catherine de Medicis, not content with thus avenging 
her husband's death, demoHshed the Palais des Tour- 
nelles, and a few years later Henri IV., to whom old 
Paris owes so much, built the Place Royale, just as it is 
now. His own pavilion was the centre building on the 
south side, comprising the gateway which Mr. Dexter 
has drawn ; the Queen's was the corresponding building 
on the north side. 

Around dwelt the nobles of the Court — such at any 
rate as were not living in the adjoining Marais. Riche- 
lieu's hotel embraced Nos. 21-23 as they now are. It 
was in front of that mansion that the famous duel 
between Montmorency-Bouteville and Des Chapelles 
against Bussy and Beuvron was fought. The spirit of 
the great Dumas, one feels, must haunt this Place : for 
it is peopled with ghosts from his brave romances. 

The decay of the Place des Vosges began, of course, 
when the aristocracy moved over to the Faubourg St. 
Germain, although it never sank low. The Revolution 
then took it in hand, and naturally began by destroying 
the statue of Louis XIII. in the centre, which Richelieu 
had set up, while its name was changed from Place 
Royale to its present style in honour of the Department 
of the Vosges, the first to contribute funds to the new 
order. In 1825, under Charles X., Louis XIII. in a 
new stone dress returned to his honoured position in 
the midst of the square, and all was as it should be once 
more, save that no longer did lords and ladies ruffle it 
here or in the Marais. 




THE PLACE DES VOSGES 

(southern ENTKAXXE, I.N THE RUE BIRAGUe) 



RACHEL 301 

The most picturesque associations of the Place des 
Vosges are historical; but it has at any rate three 
houses which have an artistic interest. At No. 1 was 
born that gifted and delightful lady in whose home in 
later years we have spent such pleasant hours — Madame 
de Sevigne, or as she was in those early days (she was 
born in 1626) Marie de Rabutin-Chantal. At No. 13 
lived for a while Rachel the tragedienne. According 
to Herr Baedeker, who is not often wrong, she died here 
too: but other authorities place her death at Carmet, 
near Toulon. I like to think that this rare wayward and 
terrible creature of emotion was once an inhabitant of 
these walls. The third house is No. 6, in the south- 
eastern corner, the second floor of which, from 1833 to 
1848, was the home of Victor Hugo. It is now a Hugo 
museum. Although Hugo occupied only a small por- 
tion, the whole house is now dedicated to his spreading 
memory. Let us enter. 

There is nothing in England like the Hugo museum. 
I have been to Carlyle's house in Cheyne Row; to 
Johnson's house at Lichfield ; to Wordsworth's house 
at Grasmere ; to Milton's house at Chalf ont St. Giles ; 
to Leighton's house at Kensington ; and the impression 
left by all is that their owners lived very thin lives. 
The rooms convey a sense of bareness: one is struck 
not by the wealth of relics but by the poverty of them ; 
while for any suggestion that these men were pulsating 
creatures of friendship one seeks in vain. But Hugo — 
Hugo's house throbs with life and energy and warm 



302 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

prosperous amities. Every inch is crowded with memen- 
toes of his vigour and his triumphs, yes, and his failures 
too. 

Here are portraits of him by the hundred, at all ages, 
caricatures, lampoons, play bills, first editions, popular 
editions, furniture by Hugo, decorations by Hugo, 
drawings by Hugo, scenes in Hugo's life in exile, 
wreaths, busts, portraits of his grandchildren (who 
taught him the exquisite art of being a grandfather), his 
death-bed, his death-mask, the cast of his hands. Hugo, 
Hugo, everywhere, always tremendous and splendid and 
passionate and French. 

Among the more valuable possessions of this museum 
are Bastien-Lepage's charcoal drawing of the master; 
Besnard's picture of the first night of Hernani with the 
young romantic on the stage taking his call and hurling 
defiance at the gods ; Steinlen's oil painting (there are 
not many oil paintings by this great draughtsman and 
great Parisian) "Les Pauvres Gens"; Daumier's 
cartoon " Les Chatiments " ; Henner's " Sarah la 
Baigneuse" from Les Orientales ; allegories by Chifflart; 
beautiful canvases by Carriere and Fantin-Latour ; 
and Devambez's " Jean Valjean before the tribunal of 
Arras," in which Jean is curiously like Gladstone in a 
bad coat; Vierge's drawing of the funeral of Georges 
Hugo, during the siege; and Yama Motto's curious 
scene of Hugo's own funeral, of which there are many 
photographs, including one of the cofian as it lay in 
state for two days under the Arc de Triomphe. There 



DUMAS' PEN 303 

are also a number of Hugo relics whicla the camelots 
of that day were selling to the crowds. 

Hugo, it is well known, nursed a private ambition to 
be a great artist, and in my opinion he was a great 
artist. There are on these walls drawings from his hand 
which are magnificent — mysterious and sombre for- 
tresses on impregnable cliffs, scenes in enchanted lands 
with more imagination than ever Dore compassed, and 
some of the sinister cruelty and power of Meryon. Hugo 
was ingenious too : he decorated a room with coloured 
carvings in the Chinese manner and he made the neatest 
folding table I ever saw — hinged into the wall so that 
when not in use it takes up no floor-space whatever. 

It is amusing to follow Hugo's physiognomy through 
the ages, at first beardless, looking when young rather 
like Bruant, the chansonnier of to-day ; then the coming 
of the beard, and the progress of it until the final stage 
in which the mental eye now always sees the old poet — 
white and strong and benevolent — the Hugo, in short, 
of Bonnat's famous portrait. 

On a table is a collection of literary souvenirs of 
intense interest: Hugo's pen and inkstand, and the 
great Dumas' pen presented to Hugo in 1860 after 
writing with it his last " 15 or 20 " volumes (fifteen or 
twenty — how like him !) ; Lamartine's inkstand, offered 
" to the master of the pen " ; Georges Sand's match-box 
for those endless cigarettes, and with it her travelling 
inkstand. In another room upstairs are the six pens 
used by Hugo in writing Les Humbles. Dumas' pen is 



304 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

not by any nieans the only Dumas relic here ; portraits 
of him are to be seen, one of them astonishingly negroid. 
Had he too worked for liberty and carried in his breast 
or even on his sleeve a great heart that, like Hugo's, 
responded to every call and beat furiously at the very 
whisper of the word injustice, he too would have his 
museum to-day not less remarkable than this. But to 
write romances was not enough: there must be toil 
and suffering too. 

Dumas and Hugo were born in the same year, 1802 : 
Balzac was then three. In 1809 came Tennyson and 
Gladstone; in 1811 Thackeray and in 1812 Browning 
and Dickens. What was the secret of that astounding 
period ? Why did the first twelve years of the last 
century know such energy and abundance ? To walk 
through the rooms of this Hugo museum, however 
casually, is to be amazed before the vitality and exuber- 
ance not only of this man but of the French genius. It 
is truly only the busy who have time. I wish none the 
less that there was a museum for Alexandre the Great. 
I would love to visit it : I would love to see his kitchen 
utensils alone. The generous glorious creature, "the 
seven and seventy times to be forgiven " ! As it was, 
no one being about, I kissed the pen with which he had 
written his last " 15 or 20" novels (the splendid liar !). 

I wish too that we had a permanent Dickens museum 
in London — say at his house in Devonshire Terrace, 
which is now a lawyer's office. What a fascinating 
memorial of Merry England it might become and what 



THE THREE DUMAS' 305 

a reminder to this attenuated specialising day of the 
vigour and versatility and variety and inconquerable 
vivacity of that giant ! Just as no one can leave Hugo's 
house without a quickening of imagination and ambi- 
tion, so no one could leave that of Charles Dickens. 

In addition to this museum Hugo has his monument 
in the Place Victor Hugo, far away in a residential desert 
in the north-west of Paris, a bronze figure of the poet as 
a young man seated on a rock, with Satire, Lyric Poetry 
and Fame attending him; while on the fa9ade of the 
house where he died, No. 124 Avenue Victor Hugo, is a 
medallion portrait. He figures also in a fresco in the 
Hotel de Ville. Dumas' monument is in the garden of 
the Place Malesherbes in the Avenue de Villiers. Dore 
designed it, as was perhaps fitting. The sturdy Alex- 
andre sits, pen in hand, on the summit, his West Indian 
hair curling vigorously into the sky, with d'Artagnan 
and three engrossed readers at the base. It is not quite 
what one would have wished ; but it is good to visit. 
His son, the dramatist, the author of that adorable joke 
against his father's vanity — that he was capable of riding 
behind his own carriage to persuade people that he kept 
a black servant — has a monument close by ; and the 
gallant general of whom one reads such brave stories in 
the first volume of the Memoires is to be set there too, 
and then the Place, I am told, will be re-named the 
Place des Trois Dumas'. 



CHAPTER XX 

THE BASTILLE, PERE LACHAISE AND THE END 

A Thoughtful Municipality— The Fall of the Bastille — Revolt and 
Revolution — The Column of July — A Paris Canal — Deliberate 
Building — The Buttes de Chaumont — A City of the Dead — Pere 
Lachaise — -Bartolome's Monument — The Cimetiere de Mont 
Parnasse — The Country round Paris — What we have Missed — 
Conclusion. 

THE Place des Vosges is close to the Place de la Bas- 
tille, which lies to the east of it along the Rue St. 
Antoine. The prison has gone for ever, but one is as- 
sisted by a thoughtful municipality to reconstruct it, a 
task of no difficulty at all if one remembers with any 
vividness the models in the Carnavalet or the Archives, 
or buys a pictorial postcard at any neighbouring shop. 
The contribution of the pious city fathers is a map on 
the fa9ade of No, 36 Place de la Bastille, and a per- 
manent outline of the walls of the dreadful building in- 
laid in the road and pavement, which one may follow 
step by step to the satisfaction of one's imagination and 
the derangement of the traffic until it disappears into 
cafes and shops. One has to remember, however, that 
the surface of the ground was much lower, the prison 
being surrounded by a moat and gained only by bridges. 

306 



BIRTH OF THE REVOLUTION 307 

For the actual stones one must go to the Pont de la 
Concorde, the upper part of which was built of them 
in 1790. 

The Bastille's end came in 1789, at the beginning of 
the Revolution, on the day after the National Guard 
was established, when the people of Paris rose under 
Camille Desmoulins and captured it, thus not only dis- 
playing but discovering their strength. Carlyle was 
never more scornful, never more cruelly vivid, than in 
his description of this event. I must quote a little, it 
is so horribly splendid : " To describe this Siege of the 
Bastille (thought to be one of the most important in 
History) perhaps transcends the talent of mortals. 
Could one but, after infinite reading, get to understand 
so much as the plan of the building ! But there is open 
Esplanade, at the end of the Rue Saint-Antoine ; there 
are such Forecourts, Cour Avance, Cour de VOrme, 
arched Gateway (where Louis Tournay now fights) ; 
then new drawbridges, dormant-bridges, rampart-bas- 
tions, and the grim Eight Towers : a labyrinthic Mass, 
high-frowning there, of all ages from twenty years to 
four hundred and twenty ; — beleaguered, in this its last 
hour, as we said, by mere Chaos come again ! Ordnance 
of all calibres; throats of all capacities; men of all 
plans, every man his own engineer: seldom since the 
war of Pygmies and Cranes was there seen so anomalous 
a thing. Half-pay Elie is home for a suit of regi- 
mentals; no one would heed him in coloured clothes: 
half-pay Hulin is haranguing Gardes Fran9aises in the 



308 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

Place de Greve. Frantic Patriots pick up the grape- 
shots; bear them, still hot (or seemingly so), to the 
Hotel de Vilie : — Paris, you perceive, is to be burnt ! 
Flesseiles is ' pale to the very lips ' ; for the roar of the 
multitude grows deep. Paris wholly has got to the 
acme of its frenzy ; whirled, all ways, by panic madness. 
At every street-barricade, there whirls simmering a 
minor whirlpool, — strengthening the barricade, since 
God knows what is coming; and all minor whirlpools 
play distractedly into that grand Fire-Maelstrom which 
is lashing round the Bastille. 

"And so it lashes and it roars. Cholat the wine- 
merchant has become an impromptu cannoneer. See 
Georget, of the Marine Service, fresh from Brest, ply 
the King of Siam's cannon. Singular (if we were not 
used to the like) : Georget lay, last night, taking his 
ease at his inn; the King of Siam's cannon also lay, 
knowing nothing of him, for a hundred years. Yet 
now, at the right instant, they have got together, and 
discourse eloquent music. For, hearing what was to- 
ward, Georget sprang from the Brest Diligence, and 
ran. Gardes Fran9aises also will be here, with real 
artillery : were not the walls so thick ! — Upwards from 
the Esplanade, horizontally from all neighbouring roofs 
and windows, flashes one irregular deluge of musketry, 
without effect. The Invalides lie flat, firing compara- 
tively at their ease from behind stone ; hardly through 
portholes show the tip of a nose. We fall, shot; and 
make no impression ! 




MLLE. DE MORENO 

GRANIE 

{^Luxembourg) 



DE LAUNAY 309 

"Let conflagration rage; of whatsoever is combus- 
tible ! Guard-rooms are burnt, Invalides mess-rooms. 
A distracted 'Perukemaker with two fiery torches' is 
for burning ' the saltpetres of the Arsenal ' ; — had not 
a woman run screaming ; had not a Patriot, with some 
tincture of Natural Philosophy, instantly struck the 
wind out of him (butt of musket on pit of stomach), 
overturned barrels, and stayed the devouring element. 
A young beautiful lady, seized escaping in these Outer 
Courts, and thought falsely to be De Launay's daughter, 
shall be burnt in De Launay's sight; she lies swooned 
on a paillasse: but again a Patriot, it is brave Aubin 
Bonnemere, the old soldier, dashes in and rescues her. 
Straw is burnt ; three cartloads of it, hauled thither, go 
up in white smoke : almost to the choking of Patriotism 
itself; so that Elie had, with singed brows, to drag 
back one cart; and Reole the 'gigantic haberdasher' 
another. Smoke as of Tophet ; confusion as of Babel ; 
noise as of the Crack of Doom ! 

"Blood flows; the aliment of new madness. The 
wounded are carried into houses of the Rue Cerisaie; 
the dying leave their last mandate not to yield till the 
accursed Stronghold fall. And yet, alas, how fall ? The 
walls are so thick ! Deputations, three in number, arrive 
from the Hotel de Ville; Abbe Fauchet (who was of 
one) can say, with what almost superhuman courage of 
benevolence. These wave their Town-flag in the arched 
Gateway; and stand, rolling their drum; but to no 
purpose. In such Crack of Doom De Launay cannot 



310 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

hear them, dare not believe them: they return, with 
justified rage, the whew of lead still singing in their 
ears. What to do ? The Firemen are here, squirting 
with their fire-pumps on the Invalides cannon, to wet 
the touchholes; they unfortunately cannot squirt so 
high; but produce only clouds of spray. Individuals 
of classical knowledge propose catapults. Santerre, the 
sonorous Brewer of the Suburb Saint-Antoine, advises 
rather that the place be fired, by a 'mixture of phos- 
phorus and of oil-oi-turpentine spouted up through 
forcing-pumps': O Spinola-Santerre, hast thou the 
mixture ready ? Every man his own engineer ! And 
still the fire-deluge abates not : even women are firing, 
and Turks; at least one woman (with her sweetheart), 
and one Turk. Gardes Fran9aises have come : real can- 
non, real cannoneers. Usher Maillard is busy; half- 
pay Elie, half-pay Hulin rage in the midst of thousands. 

" How the great Bastille Clock ticks (inaudible) in its 
Inner Court there, at its ease, hour after hour; as if 
nothing special, for it or the world, were passing ! It 
tolled One when the firing began ; and is now pointing 
towards Five, and still the firing slakes not. — Far down, 
in their vaults, the seven Prisoners hear muffled din as 
of earthquakes ; their Turnkeys answer vaguely. 

"Wo to thee, De Launay, with thy poor hundred 
Invalides ! Broglie is distant, and his ears heavy : 
Besenval hears, but can send no help. One poor troop 
of Hussars has crept, reconnoitering, cautiously along 
the Quais, as far as the Pont Neuf. ' We are come to 



"LA BASTILLE EST PRISE" 311 

join you,' said the Captain ; for the crowd seem shoreless. 
A large-headed dwarfish individual, of smoke-bleared 
aspect, shambles forward, opening his blue lips, for there 
is sense in him; and croaks: 'Alight then, and give 
up your arms ! ' The Hussar-Captain is too happy to 
be escorted to the Barriers, and dismissed on parole. 
Who the squat individual was ? Men answer. It is 
M. Marat, author of the excellent pacific Avis au Pewple I 
Great truly, O thou remarkable Dogleech, is this thy 
day of emergence and new-birth : and yet this same day 
come four years — ! — But let the curtains of the Future 
hang." 

After some hours the deed is done and Paris re-echoes 
to the cries " La Bastille est prise ! " " In the Court, 
all is mystery, not without whisperings of terror ; though 
ye dream of lemonade and epaulettes, ye foolish women ! 
His Majesty, kept in happy ignorance, perhaps dreams 
of double-barrels and the Woods of Meudon. Late at 
night, the Duke de Liancourt, having official right of 
entrance, gains access to the Royal Apartments ; unfolds, 
with earnest clearness, in his constitutional way, the 
Job's-news. ^ Mais,'' said poor Louis, 'dest une revoke. 
Why, that is a revolt !' — ' Sire,' answered Liancourt, ' it 
is not a revolt, — it is a revolution.' " 

That was July 14th, 1789 ; but it is not the July that 
the Colonne de Juillet in the centre of the Place cele- 
brates. That July was forty-one years later, not so late 
but that many Parisians could remember both events: 
July 27th to 29th, 1830, the Second Revolution, which 



312 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

overturned the Bourbons and set Louis-Philippe of 
Orleans in the siege perilleux of France. Louis-Phi- 
lippe himself erected this monument in memory of the 
six hundred and fifteen citizens who fell in his interests 
and who are buried beneath. Their names are cut in 
the bronze of the column, on the summit of which is the 
beautiful winged figure of Liberty. 

Beneath the vault of the Colonne, and immediately 
beneath the Colonne itself, runs the great canal which 
brings merchandise into Paris from the east, entering 
the Seine between the Pont Sully and the Pont d'Auster- 
litz. At this point it is not very interesting, but from 
the Avenue de la Republique, where it re-emerges again 
into the light of day, and thence right away to the Abat- 
toirs de Villette, it is very amusing to stroll by. The 
Paris Daily Mail, which in its eager paternal way has 
taken English and American visitors completely under 
its wing, is diurnally anxious that its readers should 
make a tour of these abattoirs. But not I. That a 
holiday in Paris should include the examination of a 
slaughter-house strikes me as a joyless proposition, put- 
ting thoroughness far before pleasure. But the Daily 
Mail is like that ; it also does its best on the second and 
fourth Wednesdays in every month to get its compatriots 
down the Paris sewers. And I suppose they go. 
Strange heart of the tourist ! We never think of pene- 
trating either to the sewers or the slaughter-houses of 
our native land ; we have no theories of sewers, no 
data for comparison ; we love the upper air and the sun. 



, CANALS AND QUAIS 313 

But being in a foreign city we cheerfully give the second 
or fourth Wednesday to such delights. 

Having taken the Daily MaiVs advice and visited the 
abattoirs (which I have not done), one cannot do better 
than return to Paris by way of the canal, sauntering 
beside it all the way to the Rue Faubourg du Temple, 
where one passes into the Place de la Republique and 
the stir of the city once more. The canal descends 
from, the heights of La Villette in a series of long steps, 
as it were (or, to take the most dissonant simile possible 
to devise, like the lakes at Wootton), built up by locks. 
Idling by this canal one sees many agreeable phases of 
human toil. Many commodities and materials reach 
Paris by barge, and it is on these quais and in the 
Villette basin that the unloading is done; while the 
barges themselves are pleasant spectacles — so long and 
clean and broad — very Mauretanias beside the barges 
of Holland — with spacious deck-houses that are often 
perfect villas, the wife and children watering the flowers 
at the door. 

One quai is given up wholly to lime. This arrives in 
thousands of little solid sacks which stevedores whiter 
than millers transfer to the carts, that, in their turn, 
creak off to disorganise the trafiic of a hundred streets 
and provoke the contempt of a thousand drivers before 
they reach their destined building, on which the work- 
men have already been engaged for two years and will 
be engaged for two years more. There is no hurry in 
constructional work in Paris — except of course on Exhi- 



314 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

bitlons, which spring up in a night. The same piece of 
road that was up in the Rue Lafayette for some surface 
trouble in a recent April, I found still up in October. 
But they have the grace, when rebuilding a house in 
the city, to hide their deliberate processes behind a 
wooden screen — such a screen as was opposite the Cafe 
de la Paix, at the south-east corner of the Boulevard 
des Capucines, for, it seems to me, years. 

If, however, one is walking beside the canal in the 
other direction, up the hill instead of down, one will 
soon be nearer the Victoria Park of Paris, the park of 
the east end, than at any other time, and this should 
be visited as surely as the abattoirs should be avoided : 
unless, of course, one is a well-informed or thoughtful 
butcher. We have seen the Pare Monceau; well, the 
antithesis of the Pare Monceau, which has no counter- 
part in London, is the Pare des Buttes-Chaumont. 
Both are children's paradises, the only difference in the 
children being social position. The Pare des Buttes- 
Chaumont is sixty acres of trees and walks and perpen- 
dicular rocks and water, the special charm of which is 
its diversified character, rising in the midst to an immense 
height made easy for carriages and perambulators by a 
winding road. It has a deep gorge crossed by a sus- 
pension bridge, a lake for boats, a cascade, and thousands 
of chairs side by side, touching, lining the roads, on which 
the maids and matrons of La Villette and Belleville 
sew and gossip, while the children play around. The 
pare was made in the sixties : before then it had been a 



PERE LACHAISE 315 

waste ground and gypsum quarry — hence its attractive 
irregularities. How wonderful the heights and cathedral 
of Montmartre can appear from one of the peaks of the 
Buttes-Chaumont, Mr. Dexter's drawing shows. 

The Buttes-Chaumont is the most easterly point we 
have yet reached ; but there is another pare more 
easterly still awaiting us, not unlike the Buttes-Chau- 
mont in its acclivities, but unlike it in this particular, 
that it is a pare not of the living but the dead. I mean 
Pere Lachaise. Pere Lachaise ! What kind of an old 
man do you think gave his name to this cemetery? 
Most persons, I imagine, see him as white-haired and 
venerable : not twinkling, like Papa Gontier, but serene 
and noble and sad. As a matter of fact he was a pere 
only by profession and courtesy. Pere Lachaise was 
Louis XIV. 's fashionable confessor (Landor has a divert- 
ing imaginary conversation between these two), and the 
cemetery took its name from his house, which chanced to 
occupy the site of the present chapel. The ground was 
enclosed as a burial ground as recently as 1804, which 
means of course that the famous tomb of Abelard and 
Heloise, to which all travellers find their way, is a 
modern reconstruction. The remains of La Fontaine 
and Moliere and other illustrious men who died before 
1804 were transferred here, just as Zola's were recently 
transferred from the cemetery of Montmartre to the 
Pantheon, but with less excitement. 

Pere Lachaise cannot be taken lightly. The French 
live very thoroughly, but when they die they die 



316 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

thoroughly too, and their cemeteries confess the scythe. 
There may be, to our thinking, too much architecture ; 
but it is serious. There is no mountebanking (as at 
Genoa), nor is there any whining, as in some of our own 
churchyards. Death to a Frenchman is a fact and a 
mystery, to be faced when the time comes, if not before, 
and to be honoured. On certain festivals of the year 
there are a thousand mourners to every acre of Pere 
Lachaise. 

The natural entrance is by the Rue de la Roquette, 
but it is less fatiguing to enter at the top, at the new 
gate in the Avenue du Pere Lachaise, and walk down- 
hill; for the paths are steep and the cemetery covers 
a hundred acres and more. The objection to this course 
is that one loses some of the sublimity of Bartholome's 
Monument aux Morts at the foot of the mountain on 
which the chapel stands. This monument faces the 
principal entrance with the careful design of impressing 
the visitor, and its impact can be tremendous. We 
approach it by the Avenue Principale, in which lies 
Alfred de Musset, with the willow waving over his tomb 
and his own lines upon it. 

And then one enters seriously upon this strange pil- 
grimage among names and memories. Chopin lies here, 
his music stilled, and Talma the tragedian; Beau- 
marchais arid Marechal Ney ; Cherubini and Alphonse 
Daudet; Balzac, his pen forever idle, and Delacroix; 
Beranger who made the nation's ballads, and Brillat- 
Savarin, all his dinners eaten ; Michelet, the historian, 
and Planchette,the composer of Les Cloches de Corneville ; 



CITIES OF THE DEAD S17 

Daumier, the great artist who saw to the heart of things, 
and Corot, who befriended Daumier's last years ; Dau- 
bigny and Rosa Bonheur, Thiers and Scribe ; Rachel, 
once so very living, and many Rothschilds now poorer 
than I. 

Paris has other cemeteries, as we know, for we have 
walked through that of Montmartre; but there is also 
the Cimetiere de Montparnasse, where lie Sainte-Beuve 
and Leconte de Lisle, Theodore de Banville, master of 
vers de societe, and Fantin-Latour, Baudelaire (lying 
beneath a figure of the Genius of Evil), and Barby 
d'Aurevilly, the dandy-novelist. There are also the 
cemeteries of Passy and Picpus, but into these I have 
never wandered. Lafayette lies at Picpus, which is at 
Vincennes and costs fifty centimes to see, and there also 
were buried many victims of the guillotine besides those 
whose bodies were flung into the earth behind the 
Madeleine. 

All the space at my disposal has been required by 
Paris itself ; and such is the human interest that at any 
rate in the older parts clings to every stone and saturates 
the soil, that I do not know that I have had any temp- 
tation to rove beyond the fortifications. But that of 
course is not right. No one really knows the Parisians 
until he sees them in happy summer mood in one of 
the pleasure resorts on the Seine, or winning money at 
Enghien, or lunching in one of the tree-top restaurants 
at Robinson. We have indeed been curiously unenter- 



318 A WANDERER IN PARIS 

prising, and it is all owing to the fascination of Paris her- 
self and the narrow dimensions of this book. We have 
not even been to St. Denis, to stand among the ashes 
of the French kings ; we have not descended the formal 
slopes of St. Cloud ; we have not peeped into Corot's 
little chapel at Ville d'Avray; we have not seen the 
home of Sevres porcelain ; we have not scaled Mont 
Valerien ; we have not taken boat for Marly le Roi ; we 
have not wandered marvelling but weary amid the battle 
scenes of Versailles, or smiled at the pretty fopperies of 
the hamlet of the Petit Trianon. We have not known 
the shade either of the Bois de Vincennes or the Bois de 
Meudon. 

Much less have we fed those guzzling gourmands, 
the carp of Chantilly, or lost ourselves before the little 
Raphael there, or the curious Leonardo sketch for La 
Joconde, or the sweet simplicities of the pretty Jean 
Fouquet illuminations, particularly the domestic solici- 
tude of the ladies attending upon the birth of John the 
Baptist ; less still have we forgotten the restlessness and 
urgency of Paris amid the allees and rochers of the 
Forest of Fontainebleau, and the still white streets of 
Barbizon, or even on the steps of the chateau where the 
Great Emperor, thoughts of whom are never very dis- 
tant — are indeed too near — bade farewell to his Old 
Guard in 1814. 

Greater Paris, it will be gathered, is hardly less in- 
teresting than Paris herself; and indeed how pleasant 
it would be to write about it ! But not here. 



THE END 319 

Of Paris within the fortifications have I, I wonder, 
conveyed any of the fascination, the variety, the colour, 
the self-containment? I hope so. I hope too that at 
any rate these pages have implanted in a few readers 
the desire to see this beautiful and efficient city for 
themselves, and even more should I value the know- 
ledge that they had excited in others who are not 
strangers to Paris the wish to be there again. To do 
justice to such a city, with such a history, is of course 
an impossibility. What, however, should not be im- 
possible is to create a gout. 



INDEX 



Abattoirs, the, 312. 

Abbaye-aux-Bois, 160. 

Abelard, 315. 

Advocates and barristers, 24. 

Alvantes, Duchesse d', 45. 

Angelo, Michael, 102. 

Anne of Austria, 297. 

Antoinette, Marie, 20, 21, 71, 215, 

216. 
ApoUon, Galerie d', 248. 
Arbre-Sec, Rue de 1', 288. 
Arc de Triomphe, 114, 142-45, 302. 
Archives, the, 64, 65. 
Aristocratic homes, 62, 145, 158. 
Arnold, Matthew, quoted, 267-69. 
Artagnan, D', 288. 
Arts et Metiers, Musee de, 258. 
Astruc, 178. 
Attila the Hun, igo. 
Aurevilly, B. d', 317. 
Austerlitz, 214. 
Ave-Maria, Rue de 1', 297. 

Baedeker, 215, 261, 301. 

"Bagatelle," 146. 

Bal BuUier, 179. 

Balloons, 51. 

Balzac, 159, 178, 194, 260, 304, 316. 

Banville, T. de, 178, 317. 

Barbizon School, 100, 103-6. 

Bard, Wilkie, 235. 

Barristers and advocates, 24. 

Barry, the St. Bernard dog, 208. 

Bartholome, 316. 

Bartholomew, St., Massacre of, 23, 

286. 
Barye, the sculptor, 60, 245. 
Bassano, 89. 



Bastien-Lepage, 177. 
Bastille, the, 72, 306-12. 
Baudelaire, Charles, 56, 104, 317. 
Beauharnais, Josephine, 45, 158, 

174. 
Beaumarchais, 316. 
Beaumaris, Madame de, 297. 
Beaux-Arts, Palais des, 150. 
Beggars in Paris, 263. 
Bellini, 91. 
Benefices, 231, 232. 
Beranger, 258. 
Bergere, Cite, 250. 
Berlioz, 178, 225, 269. 
Bernard, Saint, 52. 
Bernhardt, 251. 
Besieged Resident, the, 210-13. 
Besnard, 302. 
Bibliotheque de Mazarin, 166. 

— Nationale, 247. 
Bievre, the river, 186, 187. 
Bigio, 88. 

Billiards in Paris, 220-22. 
Birague, Rue de, 299. 
Birds, the charmer of, 127-30. 
Birrell, Mr. Augustine, 15. 
Blanche, 177. 

— Rue, 260. 
Bodley, Mr., 200. 
Boilly, 71. 

Bois de Boulogne, the, 145-49. 

Bol, 93. 

Bone, Mr. Muirhead, 24, 67. 

Bonheur, Rosa, 317. 

Bonington, 92, 98, 102. 

Bonnat, 303. 

Bons Enfants, Rue des, 286. 

Bookhunters, 17, 18. 



321 



A WANDERER IN PARIS 



Bookstalls in Paris and London, 

14-18. 
Borssom, 98. 
Botticelli, 79, 80, 89. 
Bottin, 154. 
Boucher, 70, 99. 
Bouland, 176. 
Boulevardiers, 219, 239. 
Boulevards, Grands, 218, 219. 
Bourse, the, 248, 249. 
Boverie, 285. 
Brillat-Savarin, 316. 
Brisemiche, Rue, 75. 
Browning, 304. 
Bruant, Aristide, 271, 303. 
Building in Paris, 313. 
Buridan, 180. 
Buttes-Chaumont, Pare, 264, 314- 

Cabarets artistiques, 270, 271. 
Cabman, the singing, 2. 
Cabmen in Paris, 240-42. 
Cafe de la Paix, 227-43- 
Cafes, 227, 228. 

— night, 273-75. 

Cain, M. Georges, 160, 200. 

Canals, 313. 

Capel Court, 249. 

Capucines, Boulevard des, 220-24, 

273- 
Caran d'Ache, 271. 
Carlyle, 178. 

— quoted, 37-41, 116-21, 134-3?, 

138-40, 279-81, 284, 285, 307- 

II. 
Carnavalet, Musee, 61, 69-74. 
Caro-Delvalle, 177. 
Carolus-Duran, 176, 178. 
Carpeaux, no, 225. 
Carriere, 105, 176, i77, 302. 
Carries, 151. 

Carrousel, Arc de, 117-21. 
Cartoons in the street, 249- 
Cartouche, 294. 
Caxton. William, quoted, 57, 59- 

189-91, 253-55, 289. 
Cazin, 152, 175, 176. 



Cemeteries in Paris, 3^S-^7- 

Cerrito, 226. 

Cerutti, 245. 

Champions of France, 221. 

Champs-Elysees, 141, 142. 

Chanoinesse, Rue, 52. 

Chantilly, 318. 

Chardin, 70, 95, 99. 

Charlemagne, Passage, 298. 

Charles X., 300. 

Charmer of birds, the, 127-30. 

Chateaubriand, 159, 160. 

Chaudet, no. 

Chauffeurs in Paris, 242, 243. 

Chaussee d'Antin, Rue de la, 245. 

Chavannes, Puvis de, 152, 181, 

190, 193, 295. 
Cherubini, 226. 
ChifBart, 302. 
Childeric, 190. 

Chopin, 143, 178, 245, 251. 3i6. 
Christianity in Paris, 190. 
Church music, 289. 
Churches — 

Blancs-Manteaux, 67. 

Madeleine, 188. 

Pantheon, 188-96. 

Petits Peres, 249. 

Sacre-Coeur, 262. 

St. Elizabeth of Hungary, 64. 

— Etienne-du-Mont, 193, 196-98. 

— Eugene, 251. 

— Eustache, 40, 289. 

— Germain du Pre, 163. 
I'Auxerrois, 286-88. 

— Jacques-la-Boucherie, 293. 

— Joseph de Carmes, 178. 

— Julien le Pauvre, 185. 

— Merry, 76. 

— Nicholas-des-Champs, 77- 

— Paul and St. Louis, 298. 

— Roch, 278-81, 283. 

— Severin, 185. 

— Sorbonne, 181. 

— Sulpice, 163. 
"Ciel," 270. 
Cigars in Paris, 223. 



INDEX 



323 



Cimetieres in Paris, 264, 266-70. 

■ — du Nord, 266-70. 

Claque, the, 233. 

Clarac collection, no. 

Claude, 91, 98. 

Clichy, Boulevard, 270. 

Clocks in Paris, 22. 

Clotilde, 190. 

Clouet, 97. 

Clovis, 190. 

Cluny, Musee de, 181-84. 

Coligny, 286. 

Colonna, Vittoria, 89. 

Colonne de Juillet, 311, 312. 

Commune, the, 27, 115, 124, 217, 

258, 264, 278, 285. 
Compas d'Or, the, 5, 6. 
Comte, 181. 
Concierge, the, 230. 
Conciergerie, the, 19-23. 
Concorde, the Place de La, 132-40. 

— Pont de la, 307. 
Conservatoire, the, 251. 
Constable, 92. 
Coquelin, 251, 259. 
Corday, Charlotte, 216. 
Corot, 99, 103, 105, 178, 317. 
Correggio, 88, 91, 95. 
Cosimo, Piero de, 90. 

Cour du Dragon, 161. 
Coustou, no. 
Couture, 105. 
Coy ze vox, no. 
Curiosity shops, 159. 

Daily Mail in Paris, 312. 
Dalou, 151, 175, 259. 
Dammouse, 176. 
Dancing halls, 272. 
Dante, 185, 187. 
Daubigny, 105, 317. 
Daudet, Alphonse, 142, 316. 
Daumier, 152, 302, 317. 
David, 99, loi, 194, 195. 

— Madame, 152. 

— G., 95. 

Da Vinci, Leonardo, 81-87, 318. 



Death and the French, 95, 315. 

Decamps, 103, 105. 

Degas, 175. 

Delacroix, 100, 104, 106, 178, 298, 
316. 

Delair, Frederic, 199-201. 

Delaroche, 164. 

Delibes, 226, 269. 

De Musset, 56, 282, 316. 

De Neuville, 177, 270. 

Denis, Saint, 253. 

Desmoulins, Camille, 171, 284, 285. 

Devils of Notre Dame, 51, 52. 

Dexter, Mr., as a tipster, 148. 

his conception of Paris, 24. 

Diaz, 105. 

Dickens, Charles, 304. 

Diderot and the pretty book- 
seller, 17. 

Dobson, Mr. Austin, 15, 178, 184. 

Dogs in Paris, 207-9. 

— cemetery, the, 208, 209. 
Donizetti, 226. 

Dore, 303. 
Dou, 93. 

Drouot, Rue, 246, 247. 
Dubois, 175, 193. 
Duel, a famous, 300. 
Dufayel, Maison, 264-66. 
Dumas, Alexandre, 62, 93, 178, 
300, 303, 304, 305. 

fils, 24, 104. 

Duncan, Isadora, 153. 

Dupre, 106. 

Dtirer, 95. 

Dutch School, the, 94, 95, 153. 

Dutuit collection, 150, 153. 

Economy in Paris, 291, 292. 
Eiffel Tower, the, 50. 
Elizabeth, Madame, 216. 
Elocutionist, the, 203. 
Elysee, the, 276. 

— de Montmartre, 272. 
" Enfer," 270. 
Enghien, 318. 

English and French, 141, 227-40, 



324 



A WANDERER IN PARIS 



Estrees, Duchesse d', 158. 
Etoile, Place de 1', 142-45. 
Eustache, Saint, 290. 
Execution of Louis XVI., 134-37. 

Robespierre, 138-40. 

Eyck, J. van, 95. 

Fabriano, 96. 
Fairs in Paris, 147, 153. 
Falguifere, 161. 
Falliferes, President, 252. 
Fantin-Latour, 104, 176, 302, 317. 
Faubourg Saint-Honore, Rue du, 
276. 

— Poissoniere, Rue du, 252. 
Ferronnerie, Rue de la, 293. 
Fete de St. Genevieve, 197. 
Figuier, Rue, 297. 

FitzGerald, Edward, quoted, 73, 

282. 
Flandrin, 163, 176. 
Flinck, 93. 
Flower markets, 218. 
Fontainebleau, 318. 
Fouquet, Jean, 318. 
Fragonard, 99. 
Franfois I., 86, 87, 89, 248. 
Fraofois-Miron, Rue, 297. 
Franfoise-Marguerite, 262. 
Francs-Bourgeois, Rue des, 61, 68, 

74- 
Fremiet, 114, 153, 175, 179. ^93. 

205. 
French, the, 29. 

— and English, 141, 227-40. 

— Revolution, 37-41, 116-21, 134- 

37, 138-40, 279-81, 284, 285, 
307-11. 

Gallas, the, 206. 

Gambetta monument, 126. 

Gare de Lyon, 3. 

— du Nord, 3, 209. 

— St. Lazare, 3. 
Garnier, Charles, 225. 
Gautier, 270. 
Genee, 270. 



Genevieve, St. 188-92, 196, 197, 255. 

Genlis, Madame de, 159. 

Germain, Saint, 286-88. 

Ghirlandaios, the, 90, 95. 

Gibbon, 245. 

Giotto, 90, 129. 

Gladstone, 271, 302, 304. 

Goat-herd, the, 292. 

Gold and silver, iii. 

Golden Legend, The, 57, 59, 189-91, 

253-SS. 289. 
Goncourts, de, 270. 
Gounod, 143, 226. 
Grand Cafe, 220. 
Grandpre, Louise de, quoted, 35- 

37. 42-44- 
Grands Boulevards, 218, 219. 
Granie, 177. 
GreneUe, Rue de, 158. 
Greuze, 99. 
Greve, Place de, 293. 
Grevin, the Musee, 246. 
Grolier, 247. 

Gronow, Captain, quoted, 171—73. 
Guides, 224. 
Guillotine, the, 133-40. 

Habeneck, 226. 
Halevy, 270. 
Halles, the, 290—92. 

— des Vins, the, 201. 
Haraucourt, M. Edmond, 183. 

translated, 257. 

Harpignies, 152, 176, 177. 
Hals, 95. 

Haussmann, Boulevard, 216, 247. 

— Baron, 122, 123. 

Heine, Heinrich, 142, 194, 266-69. 
Heloise, 52, 315. 
Henley, W. E., 178. 
Henner, 151, 302. 
Henri II., 299. 

— IV., 12, 13, 35, 112, 264, 278, 293, 

294, 3°o- 
Herold, 226. 
Heyden, van der, 95, 98. 
Hippodrome, 271. 



INDEX 



325 



Hisdela Salle collection, 80, 95, loi. 

Hobbema, 95, 153. 

Hoffbauer, 70. 

Horloge, the, 22. 

Hospital of the Trinity, 256. 

H6tel de Ville, 294-96. 

Rue de 1', 296. 

Sens, 296. 

— des Monnaies, 167-69. 
Houdon, no. 

Hugo, Victor, 25, 32, 48, 124, 153, 
189, 298, 300-5. 

— Georges, 302. 
Huysmans, quoted, 187. 
Hyacinthe, Pfere, 47. 

Ile de la Cite, 9-30. 

— St. Louis, the, 54-60. 
Imprimerie Nationale, 68. 
Ingres, 80, 95, 100, 163, 164. 
Innocents, Square des, 293. 
Institut, the, 166. 
Invalides, H6tel des, 154-57. 
Isabey, 106, 226. 

Itahens, Boulevard des, 245, 273. 

Jabach, 87. 

Jacqueminot, Ignace, 195. 

Jardin d'Acclimatation, 202, 205-7. 

— des Plantes, 201-5. 
Jena, 214. 

Jeraud, no. 

Joan of Arc, 114, 153, 160, 193. 

"Joconde, La," 81-87, 318. 

Joke, the one, 29, 238, 275. 

Joseph, Frere, 298. 

Josephine, the Empress, 45, 158, 174. 

Jouy, Rue de, 297. 

Karbowski, 152. 
Key, sign of the, 162. 

Lablache, 226. 

Labouchere, Mr., quoted, 210-13. 
Lachaise, Pere, 315-17. 
Lafayette, 317. 

— Rue, 277, 314. 



LafStte, Jacques, 245. 

— Rue, 245. 

La Fontaine, 315. 

Lamartine, 303. 

Lamb, Charles, 285, 286. 

— Mary, 17. 
Lancret, 99. 
Landor quoted, 91. 
Lang, Mr. Andrew, 178. 
Latin Quarter, 179-81. 
Latude, 71-73. 
Lauder, Harry, 235. 
Laurens, 295. 

Law, John, 76. 

Le Brun, 99. 

Le Coutier, 175. 

Lecouvreur, Adrienne, 158, 164. 

Legros, 104, 175, 176. 

Le Nain, 97. 

Leno, Dan, 235. 

Lepage, Bastien, 302. 

Le Sidaner, 177. 

Letter-boxes, 223. 

Lippi, Fra Filippo, 90. 

Lisle, Leconte de, 317. 

Livry, Emma, 226. 

Lizst, 226. 

London and bookstalls, 14. 

Paris, 14, 24, 27, 129, 146, 

154, 201, 219, 227-40, 238, 
249, 273, 290-92. 
Longchamp, 146-49. 
Lotto, 91. 
Louis-Philippe, 121, 123, 140, 144, 

312. 
Louis, Saint, 10, 27, 35, 47, 56-60, 

65, 180. 

— XII., 248. 

— XIII., 87, 300. 

— XIV., 87, 297, 315. 

— XV., 133, 188, 248. 

— XVI., 36, 65, 115, 133, 215, 

311- 

— XVIII., 46, 125, 215. 
Louvre, Musee du, 78-113. 
Lowell, J. R., quoted, 85. 
Loyola, 263. 



326 



A WANDERER IN PARIS 



Lucas the failure, 221. 
Luini, 80, 88, 91. 
Luxembourg, the, 173-79. 
Luxor column, the, 132, 140. 
Lyons mail, the, 296. 

Madeleine, the, 188, 214-18. 

Mainardi, 90. 

Mali bran, 225. 

Manet, 100, 104, 152, 176. 

Mantegna, 91, 95. 

Marais, the, 61-77. 

Marat, 71, 195. 

Marcel, Etienne, 295. 

Marguery, 252. 

Marie Antoinette, 20, 21, 71, 215, 

216. 
Marius, 221. 
Marly le Roi, 318. 
Martin, Saint, 257, 258. 
Martyrs, Chambre de, 159. 

— Rue des, 260. 

Massacre of Swiss Guards, 11 5-21. 

St. Bartholomew, 23, 286. 

Masse, Victor, 226. 
Masson, Frederic, 246. 
Maupassant, Guy de, 143. 
Mazarin, 247, 297. 

— Rue, 276. 

Medals and their designers, 169. 
Medicis, Catherine de, 115, 287, 
288, 293, 299. 

— fountain, the, 173. 

— Marie de, 141, 294. 
Meilhac, 270. 
Meissonier, 106, 176. 
Memling, 95, 99. 

Meryon, Charles, 23, 24, 51, 303. 

Messina, Antonella di, 91. 

Metsu, 95. 

Meudon, 318. 

Meyerbeer, 226. 

Mi-Careme, 217, 218, 273. 

Michel, Georges, 70. 

Michelet, 316. 

Millet, 100, 103, 106. 

Mint, the Paris, 167-69. 



Mirabeau, 194, 245, 289. 
Moliere, 60, 170, 282, 283, 297, 315, 
Monceau, Pare, 142, 143, 314. 
Monet, 175. 

Money, bad, in Paris, 168. 
Monnaies, H6tel de, 167-69. 
"Monna Lisa," 81-87, 318. 
Mont de Piete, the, 66. 

— Parnasse, Cimetiere, 317. 

— Valerien, 318. 
Montesquieu, Rue, 286. 
Montgomery, Captain, 294, 299. 
Montmartre, 245, 254, 260-75. 
Montorgeuil, Rue, 5, 250. 
Moreau collection, 103. 

— Musee, 261. 
Morgue, the, 54, 55. 
Mottez, 177. 
Motto, Yama, 302. 
Moulin-de-la-Galette, 272. 

— Rouge, 271. 
Moulins, Le Maitre de, 97. 
Mousseaux, 226. 

Murger, Henri, 178, 180, 270. 
Murillo, 92. 

Musee de I'Armee, 154-57. 
Arts et Metiers, 258. 

— Carnavalet, 61, 69-74. 

— Cernuschi, 143. 

— de Cluny, 181-84. 

— du Conservatoire, 251. 

— Grevin, 246. 

— Guimet, 144. 

— du Louvre, 78-113. 

— de Luxembourg, 174-79. 

— Moreau, 261. 

— de I'Opera, 225, 226. 

Musees des Jardin des Plantes, 

204, 205. 
Music in Paris, 289. 

— Hall, the, in Paris, 234, 235. 
Musical trophies, 225, 226, 251. 
Musset, Alfred de, 56, 282, 316. 
Mystery plays, 256. 

Napoleon and the Arc de Tri- 
omphe, 144. 



INDEX 



327 



Napoleon, end of the Revolution, 
279-81. 

Madeleine, 214. 

Old Guard, 318. 

Pantheon, 188. 

statue of Henri IV., 13. 

Vend6me column, 278. 

— at St. Sulpice, 163. 

— his coronation, 44-46. 
early palaces, 1 74. 

interest in art, 112, 113. 

iron bridge, 166. 

rehcs, 154-57- 

second funeral, 157. 

tomb, 157. 

two Arcs, 124, 125, 126. 

— in two pictures, 10 1. 

— meets Josephine, 246. 

— relics at the Carna valet, 73. 

— III., 46, 122, 123. 

rebuilds Paris, 122. 

Neant, Cabaret de, 270. 
Necker, 245. 

Newspapers in France, 27-30. 
New Year's Eve, 273. 

— York, 129. 
Ney, 316. 

Night cafes, 273-75. 
Nodier, Charles, on the book- 
hunter, 18. 
Notre Dame, 11, 26, 31-53. 

Offenbach, 269. 
Olivier, Pere, 46. 
Olympia Taverne, 220. 
Opera, the, 48, 225. 
Ostade, 98. 

Paganini, 225, 251. 
Pailleron, 143. 
Painting, modern, 149. 
Paix, Cafe de la, 227-43. 

— Rue de la, 277. 

Palais de Justice, the, 24-26. 

— des Beaux-Arts, 150, 164, 165. 

— Royal, the, 283. 
Palma, 91. 



Pantheon, the, 188-96. 
Pari-Mutuel, the, 147, 148. 
Paris and balloons, 51. 

beggars, 263. 

Christianity, 190. 

economy, 291, 292. 

its aristocratic quarters, 62, 

158. 

billiard saloons, 220-22. 

bird's-eye views, 145. 

cemeteries, 315-17. 

civic museums, 69-74. 

clocks, 22. 

dogs, 207-9. 

early history, 9, 10. 

fickleness, 216, 245. 

flats, 162. 

Mint, 167-69. 

mobs, 32. 

newspapers, 27-30. 

restaurants, 7. 

Royal Academy Schools, 

164, 165. 

royal palaces, 11. 

Salons, 149. 

sculpture, 126, 127. 

stations, i, 2. 

statuary, 178. 

two Zoos, 201. 

views, 196, 264. 

waiters, 238. 

late hours, 273. 

London, 14, 24, 27, 154, 

201, 219, 227-40, 238, 

249, 273, 290-92. 

the play, 28. 

post, 223, 224. 

ship, 48. 

— as Meryon saw it, 23, 24. 

— fairs, 153. 

— from Notre Dame, 11, 48, 49. 
the Eiffel Tower, 50, 51. 

— in the small hours, 273-75. 

— pleasure of entering, 1-4. 

— under siege, 209-13. 
Parisian, the, his provinciality, 130. 
Pascal, 198, 247, 293. 



328 



A WANDERER IN PARIS 



Passy, Cimetifere de, 317. 

Pasteur, 160. 

Pater, Walter, quoted, 82-84. 

Pawning in Paris, 66. 

Peacocks, the 202-4. 

Pbre Lachaise, 264, 315-17. 

— Lunette, Le, 173. 
Perugino, 91. / 
Pi card, 177. 

Picpus, Cimetiere de, 317. 

Pigalle, Rue, no, 260. 

Pinaigriers, the, 198. 

Planchette, 316. 

Pointelin, 152. 

Pol, Henri, 90, 127-30. 

Police of Paris, the, 19, 240. 

Pompadour, Madame La, 283. 

Pompeii, treasures of, no, in. 

Pompes Funfebres, 251. 

Pont au Change, the, 22. 

— d' Alexandre III., 153. 

— de la Concorde, 307. 

— Neuf, 12. 
Porte Maillot, 149. 

— St. Denis, 253-56. 

— St. Martin, 256. 

Post, the, in Paris, 223, 224. 

Pot, 153. 

Potter, 95. 

Poussin, 91, 98. 

Prefecture de Police, the, 18. 

Print shops, 170. 

Procope, Cafe, 171. 

Prud'hon, 70. 

Puget, no. 

QuAi des Celestins, 60. 
Quasimodo, 25, 48. 
Quatre-Septembre, Rue du, 277. 

Rabelais, 297, 298. 

Rachel, 301, 317. 

Racine, 198. 

Raeburn, 92. 

Ramly, no. 

Raphael, 87, 88, 91, 92, 102, 318. 

Ravaillac, 293, 294. 



Reason, Goddess of, 39, 41. 

— the Cult of, 37-41. 
Reaumur, Rue, 277. 

Recamier, Madame, 10 1, 159, 160, 

245- 

Religion advertised, 252. 
Rembrandt, 91, 92, 93, 151, 248. 
Renan, 270. 
Renaudon, 27. 
Renoir, 175. 
Republic, Third, 124. 
Republican palace, a, 294. 
Republics in statuary, 259. 
Republique, Place de la, 259. 
Restaurants, 6-8, 147, 173, 199- 

201, 244, 252, 286. 
Restoration, the, 123-25. 
Reveillon, 244, 273. 
Revolution, the, 33, 65, 71, 87, 113, 

133-39. 178, 246, 259, 279, 

281, 284, 285, 289, 300, 307- 

n. 

— of 1830, 296, 311, 312. 
Revue, the, 235, 236. 
Richelieu, 181, 284, 298, 300. 

— Rue de, 247, 282, 283. 
Riding schools, 206. 
Rivoli, Rue de, 277. 
Robespierre, 138-40, 278. 
Robinson, 318. 
Rochefoucauld, Rue, 260. 
Rodin, 174, 175, 177, 195. 
Roland, Madame, 18, 71, 245. 
Roman remains in Paris, 8, 31, 

182, 187. 
Romney, 99. 
Rossini, 225, 226. 
Rothschild collection, in. 
Rougemont, Cite, 251. 
Rousseau, J. J., 106, 193. 
Rubens, 91, 93, 94, 95. 
Rude, no. 
Ruggieri, 289. 
Ruisdael, 95, 152. 

Sacre-Cceur, the, 245, 262. 
St. Antoine, Rue, 297-99. 



INDEX 



329 



St. Bartholomew, Massacre of, 23, 
286. 

— Cloud, 318. 

— Denis, 189, 215, 318. 
Rue, 225, 256. 

— Dominic, 47. 

— Francis, 129. 

— Genevieve, 188-92, 196, 197, 255. 

— Germain, 189. 

— Honore, Rue, 277-86. 

— Martin Priory, 257. 
■ Rue, 76, 257. 

— Merry, 75. 

— Peter, 75. 
Sainte Beuve, 317. 

— Chapelle, 26, 27. 
Saints-Peres, Rue, 159, 276. 

— the mothers of, 190. 
Salis, Rodolphe, 271. 
Salons, the, 149. 

Samson, the headsman, 137, 139. 

Sand, Georges, 178, 303. 

Sargent, 152. 

Sarto, Andrea del, 91. 

Scheflfer, 100. 

Scribe, 317. 

Sculpture in Paris, 78, 106-10, 126, 

127, 178, 259. 
Seine, the, 14. 
Sens, H6tel de, 296. 
Sevigne, Madame de, 73, 301. 
Sevres, 318. 
Sewers, the, 312. 
Shaftesbury Avenue, 277. 
Shaw, Mr. Bernard, 166. 
Sicard, the Abbe, 178. 
Siege of 1870, the, 210-13. 
Sisley, 152, 175. 
Soitoux, 259. 
Solano, 91. 

Sorbonne, the, 179-81. 
Steinlen, 152, 176, 271, 302. 
Sterne, Laurence, 16, 163. 
Stockbrokers in Paris, 249. 
Stoppeur, the, 162. 
Street life in Paris, 236-43. 
Streets, favourite, 250, 276, 277. 



Student life, 180. 

Suresnes, 149. 

Swiss Guards, 115-21, 



216. 



Tabarin, Bal, 272. 
Tailors, political, 249. 
Talma, 316. 
Temple, the, 63. 
Tennyson, 304. 
Terburg, 95, 102, 153. 
Terra-cottas, no. 
Thackeray, 157, 294, 304. 
Thames, the, 14. 
Thaulow, 177. 
Theatre, the first, 256. 

— the, in Paris, 232—34. 
Theatres, 28, 282. 
Themines, the Marquis de, 200. 
Thiers, 317. 

— collection, 102. 
Thomas, Ambroise, 143, 269. 
Thomy-Thierret collection, 105, 106. 
Tiber, the, 109. 

Tintoretto, 89, 91. 
Tissot, 177. 
Titian, 88, 89, 91. 
Tortoni, Cafe, 171-73. 
Tour d' Argent, the, 199-201. 

— Saint- Jacques, 293. 
Traffic, 240. 
Trajan, 290. 

Triomphe, Arc de, 114, 142-45, 302. 
Tristan und Isolde, 292. 
Troyon, 70, 105, 106. 
Tuileries, the, 1 14-31. 

UCCELLO, 90. 

Uzanne, Octave, on the booksellers, 
15, 16. 

Valois, Rue, 285. 
Van de Velde, 153. 

— Dyck, 94. 

Vasari quoted, 85, 86. 
Veber, 152. 
Velasquez, 88, loi. 



330 



A WANDERER IN PARIS 



Vend6me, Place, 277, 278. 

Venus of Milo, 107. 

Verdi, 226. 

Vermeer, 95. 

Veronese, 88, 89. 

Versailles, 318. 

Vestris, 226. 

Viarmes, Rue de, 288. 

Victor Hugo, Avenue de, 305. 

Vierge, 152, 302. 

Views in Paris, 11, 48—50, 145, ic 

262. 
Villebresme, Vicomte de, 297. 
Ville d'Avray, 318. 
— Hotel de, 294-96. 

Rue de 1', 296. 

Vincennes, 318. 

Vinci, 81-87, 95, 318. 

Virgin, the, and the Bird, 42-44. 

Voisin's, 7. 

VoUon, 70, 177. 



Volney, Rue, 252. 
Voltaire, 71, 166, 194, 195. 
Vosges, Place des, 299. 

Waiters, 238. 

Wallace, Sir Richard, 146, 

Watteau, 70, 95, 99, 178. 

Waxworks in Paris, 246. 

Weenix, 98. 

Weerts, 181. 

Weyden, Roger van der, 95. 

Whiff of Grapeshot, the, 279-81. 

Whistler, 104, 177. 

Wiertz, 261. 

Willette, 271, 272. 

Winged Victory, 78, 79, 87. 

Women in Paris, 219, 239, 291. 

ZiEM, 151. 
Zola, 194, 315. 
Zurbaran, 92. 



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